Quest of Memories
by EternalFluffy
Summary: Post JoD, AUish. Now free of Wizeman's control, Reala discovers his true purpose as guardian of the Waking World. And when one teenage girl in Bellbridge decides to take his hand...her life will never be the same again. Art by lacewing
1. The Crystal

Hey there. This is my first NiGHTS fic, though I say stuff like "this is my first (BLANK) fic" a lot, since I write stories across many different fandoms. 

I wasn't going to post this because I had several people expecting another Zelda fic from me, but...well... I can't resist this. And I get even more frustrated since there seems to be a lack of serious, longer-running NiGHTS fics, especially about JoD, and about Reala. 

This _is_ about JoD, and as such, contains SPOILERS for the ALL-C ending, right off the bat. Though I actually got spoiled myself, because I didn't understand that there was a different ending once you got all C's. At least I felt a little better, since the whole time when I played the original ending I was thinking "_Where is Reala_?" I would've been so mad if he hadn't appeared again in the All-C ending. 

So, yes! Reala is my next victim! And that means: Fluff! Sappyness! OOC-ness! Long chapters! Light humor! And weird ideas! No, it won't be that bad... (hopefully) Yes, Reala is essentially going to be a "good guy", so it's inevitable that he'll be OOC, but he's uh...still not a very nice good guy. 

The AU isn't that this will be taking place in another universe like, say, a high school, but that it's a story which asks a "what if?" question. In this case, "What if Reala and NiGHTS aren't actually Nightmaren? What if they're...something else?" 

This will contain an OC as a main character, appearing next chapter, but only one. I generally don't like OC's, but...this storyline required an OC. But she's not a Mary Sue. Seriously. I took her through the test. 

I know I talk a lot about Reala's "gloves" and "blue skin", while it looks as if he actually has white skin and no gloves with...pink fingernails... But, actually, I never even noticed that when I was playing JoD. For some reason, I always saw him as having a light blue face with white gloves, sleeves, and tights, and so that's the way I describe him. 

And I know some people (in fact, most NiGHTS fans I've seen) believe that the boss Nightmaren can think and talk too, but personally, that never occured to me. It's probably because I'm a JoD convert...

Rated for future disturbing imagery and...the Owl abuse in this chapter. Really, I don't hate him...but Reala sure does. And JoD Reala really does love to strangle people...

_Italics_ used for stressed words, thoughts, foreign words, flashbacks, and whatever else I might decide to use it for. 

Reala, Owl, NiGHTS, and all those cool people belong to Sonic Team. 

I usually try to update about once a month, but sometimes take longer, unexplainable hiatuses. But I've at least started chapter two! 

(-)

Chapter 1: The Crystal

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. It wasn't just the pain. The pain was nothing. The pain didn't matter. Something was wrong... What...what had just happened again? The details were soft and fuzzy... Something was stabbing, in a very different place. What was that? What was this? This...nothingness. Nothingness. All this was nothingness. He couldn't see. He couldn't remember. 

He dimly lifted his head towards the sky. _Was_ that the sky? It was awfully psychedelic. That neon red symbol shouldn't be there... Then...there was something cold. Something frozen, and even a little painful.

That's when he remembered. He had put it there. His name was Reala, first class Nightmaren under Wizeman...and he had just been defeated by his rebellious other half. Yet there was something else...there was something else, but he couldn't lay a finger on it. Something he'd only just remembered. And then, with a stab of panic, he realized what was wrong. 

His arm, despite its deep and painful gash, automatically shot forwards, seizing the small, gold, feathered mask that had been lying against the concrete. His long, spindly body scrambled back up into a kneeling position, his arm shooting back up to his head, ready to slam it firmly back over his eyes... And then...they stopped. 

He knelt there, holding the mask in front of his face with trembling arms. That frozen icicle stabbed at him, prodding him to continue...but some other part was holding him back. He had just remembered something...but he didn't know what it was. For some reason, those words kept repeating themselves in his mind. _"You're the one who's a puppet!" "You're the one who's a puppet!" "You're the one who's a puppet!" _

"Nn...N-NiGHTS..." 

Reala felt his chest constricting. How...? He hadn't even been _thinking_, so how could he have spoken? He hadn't said anything. The name just slipped out of him by itself. His mind was completely blank, unaware of the battle buzzing dimly from somewhere deep inside him. 

And that's when he heard it. That voice... It was real now, not the one echoing automatically in his mind. He was connected...he could hear it over the incredible distance, and he could almost see the moment in his mind. He tipped his head further into his chest to better listen. 

NiGHTS was there now...standing before his master, the two little Visitors with him. And he was saying something. "Shut up, Wizeman!" his light, feminine voice sounded out, strangely forceful. "We're not your puppets!" 

_There it is again. We're not your puppets. The Visitors? That seemed odd to apply to them. _

"...We can do things on our own, and we won't be held back by anyone, because we have free will!" 

_"We"..._

At last, Reala experienced a moment of lucid consciousness He thought...he was genuinely confused. "Who...who are you talking about...?" 

And then, he was plunged back into those familiar sounds, visions, and sensations...only something was terribly off. Something was howling...whistling... Gray chunks whirling past, blunt edges standing clearly out against the blur. There was nothing. No speech. Vision blended and merged together like a mirage. Where...? How...? What...? _Why_...? An echo came from behind. An echo which quivered down into someplace unknown. 

At last, a thought surfaced from that well of nothingness. _Go. You need to go. Now. _It was lost on its way down to the limbs. _You are in danger. You are in grave danger. You are going to die now. He is going to die. Everything is going to be destroyed. Do something! _It was impossible. The limbs had obviously lost their connection to the mind. Or maybe they had never had one. Either way, it was useless.

Gray...black...blue... Purple... No. He wasn't _going_ to die. He was dying right now. He could feel it. Slowly, gradually...he was dying...bit by bit.

A flash. Wind. The ground. Nothingness. A great void--an enormous vacuum had now been ripped into the fabric of the very universe. And he was going to fall in. 

A terrible, deep, shivery coldness spread throughout Reala's entire body. And for a moment, he recovered his mind. "M-M-Master!" 

Still holding his mask crushed in one hand, Reala shot himself into the air again. One of his arm guards snapped off his forearm, clanking in an echoing void against the pavement, along with his left flank plate. He'd have a lot to apologize for once he returned...but it didn't matter! If Wizeman died, he would die too! And so would NiGHTS! _Why had he never realized that_?

Reala sped through the sky of Bellbridge as fast as his weakened power would allow. Faded red sparkles trailed out dimly behind him. He realized what that cold feeling was--panic. The general of the Nightmaren force tried to tell himself he wasn't panicking...but if there ever was a time to paninc, it was now. What had that idiot _done_? 

As he flew desperately higher and higher towards the black mass in the sky which marked the entrance to Nightmare, he began to feel himself weakening even more. He panted hard, closing his eyes to concentrate on maintaining his speed. His other arm plate slipped off, spiraling down into the infinite dark depths below him. He was getting closer now--the electric lights of Bellbridge's skyscrapers had disappeared into the gloom. Just a little further... Reala suddenly realized that his arms were hurting...and the rest of his body felt strangely sore. _No...he's dying, I just know it. Wizeman is dying. And so are we... _Yes, he was sure now.

He plunged face-first into Nightmare, and felt, for a moment, a stinging shock through his body like he'd never felt before. He'd lived here all his life, as far back as he could remember...he'd been created in Nightmare, he'd lived and breathed in Nightmare...and it had never given him any kind of pain or even discomfort. Normally, it made him feel _better_. Something was seriously wrong. 

Reala took a few deep breaths and found himself gently lowering into the dark throne room of Wizeman. He felt slightly ashamed to be appearing so tattered, weakened, and unmasked in front of his master, but this was an emergency. 

The mask... Reala lifted his arm again and found himself dimly wondering why he hadn't put it back on again. He'd had plenty of time in which to do so... But before he did, he took a look around. 

That terrible, ice-cold stab of panic shot through him again. There was nothing. The throne room was completely empty. He staggered a bit in the shock. Maybe...maybe it wasn't... No, it couldn't be...it had to be...

"W-Wizeman!" he called out for his pillar of support. "Master Wizeman!" 

Nothing. There was nothing but that terrible, icy silence. Even here in Nightmare, there were terrors yet unknown. And for the first time in his life, Reala thought that he was afraid. This was the only thing in the world capable of making him afraid. 

"Master Wizeman!" he called, louder...the dreadful panic beginning to creep into his steadfast voice. "_Master Wizeman_! _Please_!" 

_He's alive--he has to still be alive! Nightmare is still here, I'm still alive, I'm sure NiGHTS is still alive too... Where is he?_

Reala's weakened body began to waver again...and he tumbled to his knees, completely involuntarily. He felt the heavy armor loosening around his diminishing frame.

_Perhaps...perhaps my voice can no longer reach him..._

That flash came back again, all at once. It smacked into Reala's mind so hard that he almost toppled backwards, flat onto his back. That something...it was something very important. A profound revelation...and he still didn't really know what it was. 

He saw NiGHTS's shocked, pained expression. He remembered that look--it had gradually faded out of use as time went on, but it was still clear as day. But then...there was something else. NiGHTS screaming in the grip of one of Wizeman's metallic hands, stretching his thin arms out for him...the brilliant red sun rising over a country horizon...NiGHTS laughing beside him, turning to watch something in the distance...

And then, it came... Like a resonant hum echoing in the distance, it came... The music... It was the most familiar tune in the world...not just a memory--a piece of his very soul. And it suddenly occured to him that he couldn't recall even one moment when NiGHTS had ever worked under Wizeman in the first place. 

Reala gently opened his eyes, turning towards the thin, feathered mask still clutched in his hand. This mask... This mask was...

NiGHTS screamed desperately, struggling violently against the death grip of the massive hand around him. It was a useless battle, but his stubborn nature wouldn't permit him to give up. His voice...his words were forming. Slowly, piece by piece, sentences were forming out of his mouth. 

"NO!" That high voice screeched. "NO, STOP IT!" 

Without even noticing it, Reala's chest was constricting again in response. This...something about this... It wasn't right...but he was afraid, for some completely unknown reason, and he couldn't understand why. Maybe this was when NiGHTS had first been punished...

That slim purple creature so much like him screamed and bit and tore furiously at the hand, to no avail. And at last, once he finally knew that all of his efforts were fruitless, he turned his head up...looking straight down into his eyes. And he yelled, as loud as his voice would allow. "REALA! _RUN_! GET OUT OF HERE! _DON'T LET HIM GET YOU, REALA_!"

An instant later, another of Wizeman's hands zoomed over, slamming angrily against NiGHTS's head. When it pulled away...the little purple creature was hanging limp and lifeless against his fingers...and over his closed eyes...was a round, golden, feathered mask. 

A sharp, involunary gasp of air shot down into Reala's body, and his focus plunged back onto the thin sheet of gold just inches from his face. "Th-This...this is...this is really...!" 

"_...because we have free will", "DON'T LET HIM GET YOU!", "If only you had accepted a new soul...", "You're the one who's a puppet"..._

That something in the back of his mind flared up in full force...and this time he knew what it was. 

The little golden mask suddenly burst into hateful fire in his hand. No. He couldn't believe it. He should have realized it sooner. He'd always had that tiny smidgeon of doubt, but had starkly refused to even acknowledge its existence. Now he remembered...and all the frustration and rage--at himself as well--violently snapped out of him. 

Reala stood again, the weakness temporarily gone from his limbs. His face twisted, his teeth grinding tightly together, as the flames in the center of his palm intensified, consuming the feathered mask by the second. _Why?_ Why had he _done_ this to him? Why had _everyone _done this to him? Why had he _let _them do this to him? _WHY?_

At last, once the mask was twisted, scorched, and melted beyond recognition, he grabbed it fiercely in his fist, snuffing the fire. And then, summoning every remaining ounce of his strength...he hurled it violently into the abyss behind him. It flew, like the remnants of a comet, straight down, merging with the darkness...and at last, disappearing into it altogether.

Instantly, a piece of Reala's mind felt like it was falling with it. _What are you _doingIt screamed at him from inside. _Do you know what you just did? You've deliberately defied the wishes of your master! He'll think you're a traitor! He'll punish you--he'll _kill_ you! You've betrayed the one being who understands you--the one who gave you life! You're no better than that despicable traitor, NiGHTS! _Only...only NiGHTS had never been a traitor. 

Reala reeled back, as if from the backlash, as he struggled to invoke these new, old memories and stabalize his mind again. 

Always, in the very back, buried pits of his mind, he'd known that he was a little...different from the other Nightmaren. He and NiGHTS were the only two of these beings endowed with a consciousness. They were sentient beings--capable of thinking, and reasoning, and feeling something other than blind rage and fear. Reala always attributed this difference to the simple fact that he was superior. He was Wizeman's crowning achievement--the perfect result of years of experiment and fine-tuning. But there had always been that one fact, hovering vaguely in the background... Nightmaren could only be created with pieces of Wizeman's own soul...and how could he be a piece of Wizeman's soul when he had one of his own?

Yes, Reala and NiGHTS were different from all the other Nightmaren...because they had never actually been Nightmaren in the first place. Those masks...those were mere devices, designed to keep them in submission to him, repeatedly transmitting the idea that he was their master, suppressing all their former memories. Only NiGHTS had been able to resist it...

Reala straightened himself again, cofident in these new assertions. But then...a different sort of dread began to chip away a tiny hole in the center of what he assumed to be his soul. Now what was he supposed to do? He knew now that he wasn't a Nightmaren...but what _was_ he? What was he supposed to do and where was he supposed to go? There was no one here anymore to give him orders...not even a guideline to follow. He was completely free to do whatever he wanted. And that was more terrifying than anything else. The thick blackness of what used to be his master's throne room now laid in front of him like an infinite black hole, with no way of knowing where it might lead. 

It was then that Reala's body finally caught up with his mind, and the pain of his injuries seared back to his attention. Strange...it seemed to hurt even more now than it had before. Determinedly, he clenched his teeth as he clutched his torn arms. Nearly all of his armor had fallen off by now, and even the thin nylon material of his sleeves was ripped, revealing open, though bloodless, wounds. Apparently, his kind had no blood. 

His scarred eyes opened again, scanning the area for anywhere he might be able to rest for a moment. Briefly, they lingered on Wizeman's giant red throne, but the thought was still too repulsive to him to even attempt. Weakly, he forced his body to fly forward a bit, and he carefully sat himself at its base. It was because he'd lost power after Wizeman's defeat, he decided. Had he always been this weak...? 

Reala pressed in on his body, discovering a few more wounds on his legs, and a rather nasty one on his stomach. And as he sat there, surveying the damage, another dim awareness crept into his dazed and fuzzy mind. _There's...no need for this armor anymore. Wizeman gave it to me. It's just weighing me down..._

Reala's long-nailed right hand wrapped around the armored glove covering his left...and pointedly yanked it off. The pale blue skin of his hand emerged, along with a...sleeve? Hmm...had that been there before? He turned to yank off his other glove and discovered another identical sleeve. He quickly turned away from it, confused and disgusted at the sight. 

Next, he removed his one remaining flank plate. Lazily, he flicked it down, along with the gloves, into the darkness of Nightmare, watching the pieces spiral down to their demise. 

When he tried to remove his breastplate, it felt as if something was snatching his breath away. The further he pulled it away from his chest, the more difficultly he had breathing, and he vaguely felt his consciousness slipping away from him. Quickly, he just gave up on it, letting it fall back to its place, and focused instead on his boots.

On the other hand, Reala found it extremely easy to pull off his thick armored boots. But again, he was shocked into disgust by the discovery that underneath there were...more boots. They looked different, of course, a simple black stripe dividing their thin red exterior just over the toes...but still, they looked startlingly familiar and similarly disgusting.

The metal boots followed the rest of their kin into the abyss, and now Reala was not only in pain, but utterly disgusted. He was disgusting himself. 

_I can't believe this_, he indignantly fumed as he wrapped his arms around his injured body again. _I used to be a general--a lord! I was the highest being in all of Nightmare, under Wizeman. ...But that was all a farce, wasn't it? Eeugh, I can't believe I allowed myself to be decieved for so long. Well, it was the brainwashing mask's fault. If I hadn't had to wear that, things would have been different. But of course, he had to disguise it as a "symbol of loyalty" to him... The "symbol" was the thing _keeping _me loyal. Though I wonder why it didn't work on NiGHTS..._

Reala twisted his mouth into a determined scowl and tore his mind away for a moment to simply examine the emptiness of the throne room. He would never admit that NiGHTS had been stronger than him in any way, even to himself. 

_Hmm..._ he wondered, as he stared up at the thin, feeble archways surrounding the dark area. _If I hadn't been wearing the mask, what _would _I have done? _The thought of starkly rebelling against Wizeman still made him cringe, even though he knew he had lied to him. And there was no way he would've helped NiGHTS. _Ah...I'd probably have just left them to battle it out on their own. It's none of my business._

That was an odd thought, and Reala's eyes narrowed a little as he continued staring, distractedly, into the archway. None of his business? Why was it none of his business? If he was a creature of the Dreaming World, he should surely care who ruled it. But he didn't. It didn't make any difference to him. 

_That's right_, he thought, and once more, his pain seemed to fade off into the background as his memories resurfaced. _It's none of my business. It has nothing to do with me. I have no connection with it. I don't...belong here. I have no idea where I _do _belong...but I know it's not here. I never should have been here in the first place..._

Reala was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't even notice the little streams of white sparkles until they were nearly upon him. One landed, lightly, on his shoulder, and he was at last jarred out of his deep insight. 

"_What_ the...?" Immediately, he shuddered away from it, trying to brush it off, but it was permanently stuck there. More sparkles poured in from either side of the area, rushing to congregate around him. 

"_What_?" Reala cried in alarm. Millions of little particles of light were wrapping themselves around his body...they were rapidly consuming his feet and crawling up his legs. "St-Stop it!" he yelled, scrambling backwards and nearly bumping his head on the end of Wizeman's throne. Desperately, he thrashed his now-invisible legs, trying uselessly to shake them off. "_Stop_!" 

The clouds of bright white sparkles weren't about to listen to him. They wrapped around his back next, then closed in around his arms. He was beginning to panic now. There were too many sparkles now for him to even see clearly. When he tried to look back at his hands, the glaring white light blinded him. Then, at last, they began to close, surging up from his waist, and down from his head. Soon, he'd be completely incased. 

"What _is _this?" he cried out instead. "_What's happening to me_?" But, of course, there was nobody to answer him. 

Reala squeezed his eyes closed as the light began to eat away at his face. Briefly, he wondered if he was dying. Had his injuries really been _that_ bad? 

"Gyyaaaaaaah!" he screamed out as the particles at last covered his entire head. It burned like he'd just been immersed in a pool of steaming liquid. He writhed desperately, trying to tear himself out of them, but it was no use. And finally, they closed completely over his chest. 

The terrible burning sensation flared up again, even more piercing, and he chomped down hard on his tongue to stop himself from screaming again. Thank goodness his kind had no blood.

It only lasted a few more seconds, before, mercifully, the light began to gently fade out again...and he suddenly had the odd sensation of cold, smooth stone pressing against his legs and his back. 

Reala held perfectly still and waited until the very last prickles of the searing light had gone before he chanced to open his eyes again. Well...apparently, he'd been transported somewhere. Now to find out where and why...and _how_ so that he could avoid traveling this way ever again. 

Awkwardly, Reala looked down to examine the damage...only to find that there was none. In fact, on a closer examination of his body, he realized that all of his previous injuries had completely sealed up, as if they had never been there. Even the rips in his clothing were smoothly patched up. Maybe _that _had been the true cause of the burning. Reala took this pause to get a better look at his own body. It was digustingly thin, his front plate and loosened sleeves hanging off of him, limply. The ends of his newfound sleeves were actually cuffs. They stood out against the baggy white sleeves, patterned like a checkerboard in his own familiar color scheme of red and black. 

One of those little sparks jumped up from his insides again. They _had _been there. They had always been there. They were so new and yet so terribly, terribly familiar. And it wasn't just the colors. But his hands...his hands were suddenly strange to him. They weren't supposed to be like this...this...bluish, pale tint...

He gave another little start when he noticed...but then immediately shook the feelings off. _What am I thinking? Since when have my hands _not _looked like this? My skin is pale blue--it's always been blue. These are my hands, right! _But he knew that they had and that they were. He just couldn't imagine it having been any other way. 

At last, Reala began to gradually pull himself up again, leaning his back against the blue stone wall. Urgh...his legs looked even more spindly now. He had to rely on these bendy little strings of spaghetti to hold him up. It was one of the most sickeningly pathetic things he'd ever seen.

Mentally, he decided that the first thing he'd do once he got out of this place would be to find he nearest training facility. He'd spend the rest of his time there, building himself back up again as he waited for Master Wizeman to return. No, wait... Reala grunted in frustration when he found himself slipping back into these former thought patterns. Wizeman wasn't his master. He was not a Nightmaren. But he still couldn't truly believe it, because he had no idea what he _was_. 

Surprisingly, his legs held up perfectly fine, and at last, he could get a good look around this strange room where he'd apparently been transported. The entire room was circular, made out of dark stone, with an unusually short domed ceiling. Everything was incredibly plain--the floor was bare rock, the walls made out of deep gray brick, and the ceiling a simple carved white stone. No furniture, no carpeting, no lights...the place didn't even have a single window. No wonder it was so dark in here.

_What is this, some kind of storage cellar? _Reala ground his teeth together. _As if things couldn't get any more degrading... _For a moment, he almost wished that the sparkles would come back to transport him somewhere else. At least, when he squinted narrowly at the opposite end of the room, he thought he saw a door. _This better not be locked, _he testily thought as he awkwardly pulled away from the wall and began to make his way towards it through the darkness. _Ah, well, it doesn't really matter if it _is_ locked--I'll blast the stupid thing open. There's no way I'm staying in here any longer. _

It took a moment for him to get comfortable walking again, especially on these new spaghetti legs, but he did manage to make it to the door without tripping. This door seemed incredibly out-of-place for its surroundings. Well, it was rounded at the top, slightly fitting the "curved" theme to this room...but it was so intricately designed, with silver metalwork framing and twisting delicatedly over its deep blue surface. It just looked tackily ornate. 

Reala scowled. Well, he'd have fun pounding this thing into the ground if it happened to be locked. Awkwardly, he reached out one spaghetti arm and gripped the bumpy, carved silver doorknob. It wasn't locked. 

The door swung easily open at his command, letting in a few soft beams of light and illuminating the mysterious new world on the other side. 

Reala couldn't help but let out an audible groan. "You've got to be kidding me..." Well, at least he knew where he was now. 

The cool, mysterious blue tones of the door were reflected in the atmosphere of his location. Two large and blocky columns bordered this doorway, but there, just in front of them, was a large, round, ornamental fountain. Intricate statues of stone seals spewed streams of silvery water around the waterfall-like column in the center. The blue atmosphere seemed to emit from the very center of this magical fountain, forming a dome of miniscule lighted particles. These reflected off the blackened brownish backdrop of the forest that encircled it, as well as the crumbled stone bricks rimming the circular fountain's perimeter. The Dream Gate. _Why_?

Reala rolled his eyes. Of all the places for him to end up... _Well, I guess it makes sense. If I'm not a Nightmaren, I don't belong in Nightmare...so I have to go to Nightopia. _He shuddered. _No way. There's just no way I'm staying here. I can't stand it. I'd go insane. Igck...it's so calm and peaceful..._

And then, he realized one essential point, and frowned, resigning himself to the fact. _But there's really no where else to go. I won't just turn myself back over to Wizeman's control. Ah...well, maybe I can find a not-so-cheerful dream to inhabit somewhere. Do those exist? Something between a good dream and a nightmare? Well, I'll have to find one, that's all. _

Decidedly, Reala took a few solid steps out of the doorway and further onto the small floating island which acted as the gateway to the different parts of the Dreaming World. He took a long glance over his shoulder as he did. The building he'd just come out of was a fairly small, circular, stone structure with a flat white top. Two long staircases on either side of him led up to its roof, connecting just at its edge. The whole thing looked incredibly important, for some strange, unknown reason. Why would it? There was nothing inside the building, and nothing at the top of the roof. Reala just shrugged and continued walking, mindlessly, further out towards the fountain. Whatever it was, it didn't concern him. 

"Yeeaaaaah!" 

"Ppffffffffwaaaaaaa!" 

The peace and serenity didn't last. A large ball of something fluffy had just attacked Reala's head, furiously beating its soft, bristling feathers in his face. Thankfully, he didn't have a nose, or else he would have been sneezing his brains out. Furiously, he smacked the offending creature away from him with all of his diminished strength and stood ready to attack or take flight. "_What in the_...?" 

"Ooogh..." A large brown fuzz-ball turned over in the air just in front of him and slowly flapped itself upright again. It was the big, brown, old Owl, in his little maroon overcoat, blue shirt, and spectacles, a serious frown twisting his tiny beak and making him look even more ridiculous. 

Instantly, Reala relaxed his fighting stance and now directed all of his efforts into resisting the urge to burst out laughing at him. 

"H-Hoo! Reala!" the bird called out, lifting a little further into the air. "I may not have NiGHTS here anymore to help, but mark my words, I will not let you destroy this realm of dreams!" Owl flapped backwards a little, preparing to dive-bomb his face again, but Reala just crossed his arms and sighed. 

"Just go away and don't bother me. I'm not here to attack your idiotic dream realm." _Though I do admit, killing you and roasting you over a pit would be quite satisfying. _

"Well, if you think that I would be dense enough to fall for that trick then you would be wrong, my friend!" Owl again steadied himself for the dive-bombing, tilting himself and tensing all of his aviary muscles. He poked his beak out straight, to be sure to get in a good peck or two. 

Reala raised an eyebrow at him. "If you're that smart, you would've noticed that I'm not wearing a persona mask anymore. Meaning that I am no longer under Wizeman's control and that I must not return to Nightmare. Of course, that doesn't make me any less likely to attack you, but that isn't what I came here for." 

Owl completely froze. His beady eyes widened so much that they pushed his little round spectacles halfway down his beak. His attacking position relaxed, his round body falling back into a soft, hovering descent. "Oh..." His widened gray eyes remained fixed on Reala's face the entire time, as he softly floated down to perch on the egde of the fountain. "Oh... Oh, dear... Oh goodness... Oh... Oh my goodness..." 

Reala exhaled and turned away from the stricken bird. The rubble rimming ths fountain clearly indicated that the portals to Nightopia were not yet open, but he was sure he could find somewhere else to stay until they were. Somewhere away from _him_. "That's right. So you just leave me alone and I'll leave you alone. In fact, I'll leave right now. Isn't that convenient? Now good riddance." 

He only got to take four steps before a horrible, unholy screeching paralyzed him in his tracks. Dangit. He knew he should've flown.

"_Wwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait_!" And again, the powder-puff flurry of feathers was smacking furiously against his face. 

"Arrrrgh!" That was it. Reala was coming dangerously close to his breaking point. With one hand, he managed to concentrate enough energy to blast the Dream Gate's protector backwards with a crackling red sphere. 

Owl gave off another earsplitting shriek of pain as he rocketed back, straight into a nearby stone pillar. Just barely, he managed to hold onto his consciousness, though he could no longer hold himself aloft and slipped slowly onto the ground. 

Reala's arm trembled, still holding it pointed directly at him. He had to concentrate what remained of his energy just to stop himself from blasting him into submission. "_What did I tell you_!" he roared. "You _leave me alone_! Do that _one more time_, old man, and you'll be a _smoking carcass_ in two seconds _flat_!" 

"Y-Yih...yes," Owl weakly coughed out, pulling himself to his talons and nursing his injured wings. "I'm sorry. It's just...I-It's just... Y-You _are _Reala, yes? And...and y-you're...you're not wearing your...m-m-mask..." 

"What have we just spent the last _five minutes_ talking about, you idiot? Did you not hear a _word _I said?" 

Owl turned his round head down to the blue stone ground. "Well," he muttered to himself. "At least I'm sure you are Reala..." 

"_What was that_?" 

Owl took a deep breath, steadying himself for the revelation to come. Even he was a little bit curious. "I...I have something for you." 

Reala didn't lower his hand a centimeter, though his face softened just a little in confusion. "What are you talking about?" 

"I have something for you," Owl repeated, his voice a little more steady and sure. "I was told...that if I ever saw you...here, in the Dream Gate...and you weren't wearing a mask...then I was to give you something."

Reala was obviously skeptical. He scowled down at the squat old bird as he tested out his injured wings. "Who told you this?" 

"I don't think it would be best to identify him at this moment..." 

In one fluid, instantaneous motion, Reala lunged forward to his knees, seizing the frustrating creature by the thick, feathery neck.

"Gaaaaah!" Owl's air choked out of him as the hard, bony fingers squeezed in on his wind pipes. 

Reala couldn't help grinning a little at the sight. He's always liked choking things to death. It was so amusing...the way their ridiculous bloated faces slowly began to turn purple, their tongues hanging out of their mouths... "You will tell me _now_!" 

Owl spluttered desperately for a few moments, before Reala finally loosened up on his neck to let him speak. "Um...Yih...You're not going to like it...but...if you insist..." 

Reala sighed, waiting for the flustered bird to compose himself enough to get his words out. 

"I-It was...NiGHTS..." 

Reala wasn't altogether surprised by this revelation. After all, how many other beings were there in Nightopia that might want to give him something? But now that he knew it for sure, it felt just a little uncomfortable. "So...NiGHTS asked you to give me something, huh?" _And he asked him to give it to me only when he saw me here and without that mask on. He knew that someday, I would break free of Wizeman's control and come here. Maybe he left me a message... _He gradually released pressure on Owl's neck and let his hand drop back down at his side. "So...let's have it." 

Owl gave a few short coughs, regaining his breath, and turned his puffy face back up to him with bulging eyes. He'd never thought this moment would ever come, when he would actually meet Reala here without a mask, and he would have to perform this function. Plus, he'd felt absolutely certain that if he ever learned that the gift was from NiGHTS, he would instantly refuse it. Now here the frightful creature was, demanding him to hand it over...not only mask-less but mostly armor-less and oddly thin. Though, obviously, that hadn't made him any less strong or violent. 

"A-As you wish..." the bemused bird stumbled...and with that, he swept one wing up to his neck...and carefully detached the round, blue-jeweled brooch that hung there. He balanced the brooch on the end of his flexing wing and gravely, solemnly held it out towards him. 

Reala stared at the little round decoration...then scowled back into Owl's face...then snatched the brooch away from him as if he might retract the gift, folding back up to full height. "_This _is what he asked you to give me? Your old man's brooch? What's the point of that?" 

At first, he was completely disgusted and disappointed...but the more he stared down into the item now resting in the folds of his palm, the more a nitpicking familiarity began to crawl into his consciousness. A furtive glance downwards confirmed his suspicions. This brooch was a smaller, blue version of the same round, red jewel he wore across his chest. Ah. It was probably just a freak coincidence. He tapped, absentmindedly on the jewel with one pointed fingernail. 

Owl hopped forward a little, still unable to fly, rapidly attempting to access the distant memories of his instructions. It felt like so very long ago, though it really hadn't been more than two months. Time really was indefinite in Nightopia--it was always nighttime, though some separate worlds gave the illusion of daylight. 

"Um...um..." the bird uneasily began to speak up. "I...don't remember exactly. NiGHTS wouldn't give me the details of the matter, but... I believe there is something quite important inside of it..." 

But Owl really didn't need to say any more. Reala had already discovered the groove at the edge of the jewel where it joined its round, golden frame, and was chipping away at it with his claw-like fingernails. With one final, violent jab, the brooch at last broke open, the jewel snapping along a groove near the top. The "jewel" had really been nothing but a shiny, domed cover. The thing gave way so suddenly that Reala almost lost his grip on it. He clenched it tightly in his left hand and peered down at its contents with puzzled interest. 

"I...I really don't know what it's used for or even what it _is_ really...but he acted as if it was really important to him. He told me to guard it with my life." Owl kept spluttering onward, hoping to get some sort of explanation out of the cold Nightmaren, but he hadn't spoken a word yet. 

Reala felt a strange little twinge inside of him as he reached down and gently plucked the little object from its cushion inside the brooch. It _was _important, he knew, but he had absolutely no idea why. Dangling between his thumb and index finger was a tiny blue crystal, shaped like an elongated diamond. Something was shining brilliantly from within it...shimmering...almost pulsating. And it felt strangely warm...almost as if it was alive. 

He took a moment to search the inside of the brooch again, hoping NiGHTS had at least left some kind of note or instructions with it. Nothing. He let the brooch drop from his hand, clanking against the stone pathway around the fountain, and turned back to the mysterious little jewel, scowling into its depths. And that's when it suddenly grew four inches. 

Owl gasped, and Reala was so startled that he nearly dropped the thing. He cupped it in his palm to get a better grip on it, and it now filled his whole hand, a bit smaller than a football. 

"Oh, yes!" Owl suddenly recalled. "Yes, that was its original size! I remember it shrinking in his hands... I used to be worried that it was going to get big again and stab me, hoo!" 

Reala grinned. Well, _that_ was an amusing thought. In fact, he could easily use this big, pointy crystal to impale him right now...it was like handing your murderer his weapon. But he suddenly found that he couldn't. 

His body began to shudder involuntarily again. What was going on here? Something was wrong with him. He felt suddenly sick to his stomach. He was prickling hot, then icy cold, then prickling hot again... 

Owl watched his convulsions with a surprising amount of concern, considering that he'd just attacked him twice. His long, feathery eyebrows scrunched a bit inwards.

All of a sudden, Reala felt a terrible, desperate urge to try taking off his breastplate again. _What? I can't do that! _His mind yelled at him. _I'll suffocate! I won't be able to breathe! I'll pass out! That jewel has something to do with my...life... _But it was too late for second thoughts. 

His left hand was fumbling with the plate's strings, loosening the shoulder areas. The stiff metallic plate was beginning to fall away from his body like a shell, and automatically, he felt the panic rising again within him, overriding his feelings of sickness. _This is insane! _But he had to do it. And at last, it broke away altogether, falling and clanking emptily against the stone ground, right next to the brooch. Underneath was a thin red jacket, rimmed with gold. 

Reala clenched his eyes closed, holding his breath tightly inside him. How long would he be able to stay like this? How long would he have to live before he had to scramble to reattach it? And that's when he realized, quite obviously, that he was still conscious...he was thinking right now. So if that hadn't happened, then...

He opened his eyes again, exhaled just a little...and slowly, gradually, drew in a deep breath. Nothing. Everything was fine. He could still breathe perfectly fine. His insides fell back into a calm, settled state, and he found himself looking back at the blue crystal in his hand. 

Meanwhile, Owl's beak was hanging open, watching this spectacle unfold before him. His mind whirred crazily, just trying to figure out what was going on. It couldn't be that...? 

Reala decided to try a little experiment. Maybe this crystal had something to do with the reason he was able to live without his breastplate jewel now. So he turned around and tried to set it down on the edge of the fountain. 

Immediately, as soon as his hand ceased contact with the jewel, it came back again. _N-No...I'm suffocating...I'm...I'm... _Blackness obscured his vision, and desperately, he groped one hand forward, seizing the crystal just in time. Immediately, his vision, his thoughts, and his breath came back to him all at once. 

_Ah... _Owl realized as he observed this little demonstration. _So he can't live without one of those crystals close to his body... It's like a life-support system. But...it seems like a little more than that..._

Reala frowned dourly at the innocent, sparkling gem. _Great. I'm going to have to carry this thing around with me? I can't believe this. It's one thing to lose half my strength, but now I'm dependent on a stupid _jewel_! This is just plain pathetic! I'd rather put my breastplate back on. Unless...there's somewhere to attach this thing..._

He took a moment to examine his newly revealed jacket, but there didn't appear to be any holes or straps with which he could tie the crystal to his body somehow. He nudged the fallen metal shell of his breastplate with his foot, considering...and in a brilliant array of fire and black smog, the red jewel encrusted into its center suddenly burst apart. Oh well. That took care of that. There was only one option now... Maybe there were pockets on the inside...

As Reala lifted the crystal closer to his jacket, searching for a pocket, it began to strangely quiver and tug against his hand, as if something else was attracting it. ...His chest? Staring downward in frustrated confusion, he at last loosened his grip and let the thing do what it wanted to do. And what it wanted to do was to stick itself firmly onto his chest, pressing deeply in on his thin black-strip shirt. It didn't hurt at all...in fact, he didn't even feel the pressure. It felt...completely natural. Reala bent over forward, just to make sure it wasn't going to fall, but it didn't move an inch. The crystal was now plastered to his chest like a magnet. 

And Owl was having a fit. The very tips of his feathers quivered. "Oh...oh goodness...gracious...hoo, my..." He could sense it. The transformation was now complete, and he was simply speechless at the wondrous, amazing, unbelievable sight before him. Could it...really be? "R-Rih...Reala...?" 

At last, Reala snapped back into his current surroundings and discovered Owl staring up at him from the ground, a disgusting grin spreading over his beak and his eyes bright behind his glasses. "What are you _smiling_ at, you feather-brained Nightopian wannabe? You're lucky I didn't decide to use this crystal to stab you to death, because I really almost did." 

Owl's head drooped. Oh well. Too much to hope for. Obviously, the transformation was only skin-deep. "Hoo..excuse me. You just look so different... Much less like...yourself, you see..." 

Reala took a quick glimpse into the fountain to see exactly what he was talking about. He'd examined his body already, but he hadn't yet gotten a good look at the full effect. And the moment he did, he noticed what Owl had been talking about. His slimmer body, his thin boots, his loose white sleeves with the cuffs, his rimmed jacket, and that crystal now in the center of his chest...

Abruptly, he whirled away from the sight and fixed Owl with his most furious glare. "I do _not_ look like NiGHTS! For one thing, my skin is _blue_, I have scars across my eyes, and my sensors are longer and curled in! Don't you even _suggest_ that I look anything like him!" 

"Y-Yes...excuse me..." Owl twittered, though his mind was chuckling at him. _He just looks like a red-and-black NiGHTS..._

Meanwhile, though Reala's tough, threatening stance didn't waver a bit, the back of his mind was whirling again into confusion. _...Sensors? Did I just say "sensors"? Why "sensors"? I've never heard anyone call them that before..._ Indeed, Reala usually reffered to the long, jester-hat tendrils on his head as his "ears", since he did use them to hear, and also, oddly enough, to smell. He once remembered NiGHTS jokingly calling them "nosears"...but never "sensors". Ah, well. The strange word had just sort of slipped out of him unconsciously, so maybe he'd been thinking of something else.

All he knew was that he didn't belong here. He _knew _he didn't belong here. He needed to get out of this place right now!

"Where's the exit to this place?" he demanded, causing poor Owl to reel back in shock again. He had an idea himself, but he had to know for sure. "I've got to get out of here. Now." 

"B-B-But-but, that's impossible!" Owl stuttered as he hopped a bit closer. "I-It's against the laws of the very universe! Nightmaren can't leave the realm of dreams! Even I myself cannot cross that barrier--only the Visitors are capable of..." 

"Well, I'm not a Nightmaren," Reala raised his voice above the flustered bird's chatter, crossing his arms. "I have nothing to worry about. I'm not supposed to be here." 

Now, Owl was on the verge of another miniature heart attack. This time, his spectacles actually _did_ slip off the end of his beak. "Wh-Wh-_What_? Did you just say that...that you're not...?"

"Tell me where the exit is," Reala growled, warningly. "No questions. Is that it back there?" Forcibly, he jabbed one finger back towards the rounded building from which he had come. Maybe that was why it was so important. 

Owl fumbled forward, shakily guiding his glasses back over his eyes. "Oh...yes. Yes, actually. That is the building through which Visitors used to pass to return to their own Waking World..." 

And that was all Reala needed to hear.

"W-_wait_!" Owl screeched after him. "That passage is only for Visitors! And even if you say you're not a Nightmaren, you're certainly not a Visitor! The door's not even open anymore!" 

Reala paused for just a moment in his flight towards the circular building to turn back and glare at him. "Well, I've got news for you. I came _through_ that door, so I know for a fact it's not closed off. Now, good riddance." 

Owl also froze in his furious hopping to boggle again. He'd never been so disconcerted and utterly confused in his life. What in the name of Nightopia was going on here?

Reala snapped back around to continue his flight...but something was tugging him back. There was something he had to say. His mouth furrowed down in a scowl as his gaze fell down on the sparkling blue jewel cemented to his chest. _Uggghhhh...I can't believe I'm going to do this..._

"...And, uh, make sure you tell NiGHTS that I got this crystal...okay?" 

Owl's breath slowed to a halt. Now he was even more baffled than ever...but this time, also a little amazed. The way he'd said that...it wasn't a demand, a threat, or a sarcastic gibe. It was almost as if he was saying. "Thank you." But once Owl finally got up enough composure to make some sort of reply, he was already gone. Of course.

As soon as Reala sped into the circular building, those little sparkling particles of light popped back into existence, converging around his body. They flew towards him, wrapping over him like a blanket...and this time it didn't hurt at all. He closed his eyes, once the light was too bright for him to see through, and relaxed. Now, he knew he was going to the place he belonged. The place he'd been away from for so long...

Owl stared blankly after him, into the stone building. _"And, uh, make sure you tell NiGHTS that I got the crystal, okay?" _

_NiGHTS..._ Would he even be _able _to tell him? Owl hadn't seen one hint of the cheerful rebel since he and the children had been attacked by Wizeman. Owl could feel that Will and Helen had returned to the Waking World unscathed...but what had become of NiGHTS?

Somehow, he thought that the news of Reala recieving his crystal would make him very, very happy...and a little sorrow began to creep into his feathered breast when he realized that he might never get to hear it...

(-)

_"Get away from this place!" _

_"NOOOO!" The slim figure screamed before him, writhing itself back up into an upright position. "Nooo! Owl! Don't you recognize me?" _

_"I recognize that you are a Nightmaren, and that you are a danger to this realm of dreams, and that I must not allow you to be here!" _

_"No! _No_! I'm NOT a stupid NIGHTMAREN!" The poor creature burst into violent sobs, pressing its round face into the smooth surface of the long blue crystal in its arms. "No...n-n-no one believes me... I'm the only one who...who remembers anything...it's not f-fair...it's just n-not fair..." _

_Owl's fighting stance softened just a little. Surely, a true Nightmaren wouldn't be able to cry in this way. This creature _could_ only be trying to trick him, but...its voice was so...distressed...so sincere. _

_It turned its head gently up at him, purple striped horn-tentacles flopping back. Pure, translucent teardrops coated its round cheeks, elegantly plopping off its long eyelashes and making its deep blue eyes shine even more brilliantly. "Owl...? You don't remember me at all? It's NiGHTS...your partner...remember? You've always been my friend...helping me protect the Dreaming World... Don't you remember?"_

_Frankly, Owl couldn't remember ever seeing NiGHTS before in his life, much less being friends with him. Though, just for his sake, he decided to humor him a bit. "Er...well..." He gently fluttered his wings, bringing himself down to perch at the end of the stone steps where the jester-creature was desperately sprawled on his knees. "...The name does sound slightly familiar... I really can't recall anything else, but...I do have this odd, innate feeling that I can trust you. I know I can trust you somehow..." _

_At that, a glimmer of a smile broke out of NiGHTS's face--a tiny rainbow glowing through the last raindrops of a storm. "Oh! Oh, thank you, Owl..." _

_The smile slowly evaporated again once he turned back to the large jewel bundled within his arms. "...But I guess it's already too late for him..." _

_Owl cocked his large, round head at the sight, curiously. "Mind telling me what's going on? I might be able to help... If this has anything to do with Wizeman or Nightmare..."_

_NiGHTS swiftly wiped his face on his white, decorated sleeve and rose to his large, thin booted feet, a look of determined resolution now on his face. "Wizeman..." he growled, his light, chirpy voice unusually low. "I have to get rid of him for good... I put it off for too long. This time, I've got to completely defeat him. I never imagined that he would grow this powerful... To have lost all this... I've got to take responsibility and defeat him once and for all myself!"_

_Owl hovered back up into the air as he began to descend the steps to the central fountain. His long eyebrows scrunched a little behind his glasses. Sure, it was wonderful that this NiGHTS creature wanted to help him defend Nightopia from Wizeman...but to personally defeat the Nightmare Master himself? That was a pretty tall order. Obviously, he had something personal to take up with him. _

_At last, NiGHTS dared to loosen his grip on the blue crystal. He balanced it within one hand...and oddly enough, it gradually began to shrink. _

_Owl kept a firm watch on the mysterious object, his eyes gradually growing larger and larger as it grew smaller and smaller. Obviously, this was no ordinary piece of blue crystal. _

_NiGHTS's face twisted sorrowfully as he watched the crystal withering away within his hand. It was like watching a beautiful flower dying right before your eyes. He closed his eyes and tried to block out the pain. He'd have to put it aside...again..._

_And as NiGHTS solemnly turned the object over in the center of his palm, Owl thought he heard him whisper something...something sounding like the word "tree". _

_When NiGHTS looked up again, something immediately, miraculously, caught his eyes, and Owl watched them light up, wonderfully, sparkling with renewed hope. _

_"What?" he asked, befuddled as always, but still suddenly happy for him. Once again, his misery was lifting. _

_"I know!" NiGHTS cried out, that light, musical voice back in a flash. "I know how you can help!" _

_Owl swooped closer, a smile spreading over his own beak. "Well! At last, I am capable of doing something useful to you. And how may I help you?" _

_"Let me see that brooch of yours." _

_"What?" Owl was a bit taken aback. After all that, he just wanted to look at a piece of his costume? Well, he supposed, if it could provide any sort of comfort to him... Owl reached up in the middle of his hover, plucked the little round, blue brooch from his jacket's collar, and held it out towards NiGHTS. _

_He carefully recieved it, holding it in the palm of his other hand...and flipped its surface up, as easily as if it was a jewelry box. Even Owl was a bit stunned. He hadn't exactly been aware that his brooch could open like that...how had NiGHTS been able to tell? _

_NiGHTS took the tiny blue crystal...and gently set it down inside the brooch, pressing it into the soft cushion inside. It twinkled, just faintly, at him again, and it took all that he had to restrain himself from crying again. _

_And then, at last...NiGHTS reached up with one white gloved hand...and softly, yet firmly, pressed the brooch's cover back down into place, with a gentle click. A grave, solemn, still atmosphere presided between them for a moment...as if the tiny crystal had been a person...and NiGHTS had just closed the lid of his coffin. _

_For a brief moment, he pressed his lips against the brooch's smooth surface...and with all the manner of a griever offering up the departed's soul, held the brooch out with both hands for Owl to take. _

_Owl was firstly hesitant to recieve it. After all, it seemed as if this thing was very precious and personal to him somehow...to be entrusted with its safekeeping seemed a very important job indeed. Yet, he did take it up again...slowly, carefully...and reattached it to his collar, just above his feathered breast. _

_NiGHTS smiled. And he knew he was doing the right thing. _

_"Please...please hold on to that for me," he commanded. "It's very important that you make sure nothing ever happens to it. It's something very special and irreplaceable." _

_Owl nodded, solemnly, truthfully, accepting his duty. _

_"And..." NiGHTS continued on, a beam of hope playing at the corners of his warm face. "...if you ever see another creature here...at the Dream Gate...who looks kind of like me...and he's _not _wearing a mask...kind of like this one..." NiGHTS pulled out a small, golden masquerade mask, one long, blue feather extending out of its bridge, and held it out for Owl to get a good look. "Only if he's here, and without one of these masks...then I want you to give that to him." _

_Again, Owl nodded, scrutinizing the appearance of the mask, before NiGHTS tossed it vehemently beisde the staircase. One of his wings brushed against the brooch at his neck, as if considering his new purpose. He had something very important to do--he knew it. And even as NiGHTS began to lighten up, and was soon zooming around the place like a bird that had just discovered it could fly, this solemn task remained pressed against his mind...and his collar._

_He would soon learn the name of this other creature NiGHTS had spoken of--Reala. But it was curious...that he never once thought to ask what the crystal really _was

(-)

"Mmlllegck..." Reala felt sick to his stomach again, and it wasn't from the crystal or the transportation. _That was awful. What in the world made me do _that_? I know NiGHTS isn't really my enemy...but God...that almost sounded _nice

Reala shook himself as he felt the sharp, solid ground materializing under his feet. _Well, it doesn't matter. I don't care whether NiGHTS knows or not. I'll never see him again, anyway, because I'm never going back._

And at last, the sparkles flittered away from him again, blinking back out of existence...and he could lift his eyelids to take in the new world around him. Reala couldn't help but start a little bit in shock. 

Human beings--more than he had ever seen in one place before--swarmed around him. And most of them were the same size he was. _Adults_, he realized, twirling around to get a look at the people coming from behind him. There were hardly ever any adults in Nightopia, for some unknown reason. 

The adults, their somber, serious faces downcast, marched straight past him, not giving him a second, or even a first glance. _They must not be able to see me_, Reala thought, scowling at their rushing, weaving, gray forms. _Surely, the sight of any creature like me would send them reeling into a panic. ...But then again, maybe not. They don't even seem to be able to see each other, other than to avoid each other. _

Indeed, the adults weaved around and across Reala's form, though none of them actually saw it...just as they did with the rest of the people in this drab city square. This was a city, he noticed. The tall buildings squeezed right against each other, the sky was a sick smog-color, lines of different-colored cars inched along, beeping constantly to each other in a chorus, and the people on this gray sidewalk jabbered in raised, often cross voices into little speaker devices pressed to the sides of their faces. 

A little part deep inside of Reala began to rejoice. Something was very familiar and very comfortable about this place--it felt as if he'd just returned home after a long journey... _I knew I'd belong here_, he thought, grinning a little at the drab people and vehicles whirling by. _Look at this! No one's happy, no one's spouting any stupid nonsense about love and peace, no one has any time for useless fun and games... This is my kind of place! _

With a little spring of celebration, Reala flung himself into the air, pulling upwards towards the roofs of the tall buildings. Again, none of the people noticed, so this time he could be sure that they couldn't see him. 

He held out his arms for balance, his ears and his new sleeves flapping back in the wind. He maneuvered his body, diving and weaving around pigeons, security helicopters, antennas, telephone wires, balloons, rotten fruit, cigarette butts, and other scraps of litter. All of a sudden, he thought he understood how NiGHTS felt when he glided through the skies of Nightopia. This was a very similar sensation...

At last, Reala came to the very top of the second-highest tower in the city and gracefully touched down on the edge of its roof. Not too far off, he could plainly make out the giant, square clock at the top of the tallest tower, its tip narrowing into a thin point at the very pinnacle. 

_So this is still Bellbridge_, Reala thought, his scowl falling back over his face. _Only, at least, this is the real Bellbridge...not those brats' happy dream version of it. _The sight of the familiar clock tower stirred up some resulsion in his heart, since it reminded him of NiGHTS, and inevitably, of his defeat around the false version of the icon. He turned away from that section, settling on another corner of his building's roof. 

Reala sat, crouched at the edge of the skyscraper's roof for the next ten minutes, staring down into the sea of cars, people, and buildings below him, thoughtfully. This was the Waking World--he'd known that from the moment he'd recognized the surplus of human adults. But something was not quite right about it. It didn't look...quite the same. All this smog...everyone so distracted...there was...such a startlingly low amount of ideya. 

Reala closed his eyes when he realized that he was picking up the presence of ideya. He lifted the back of his head--his sensors--and concentrated, to get a better analysis of the city's ideya. Yes... Every human being here was supposed to have the five ideya...yet most of these people had only two or three--some none at all. Aside from those two bratty children, not even one of them held all five. 

_That's what's wrong_, Reala realized as he opened his eyes again and lifted his head. _Everyone is supposed to have their ideya... Here is the place where ideya are born, and only Nightmaren would have been able to take them away. Something is stopping their production._

His gaze fell upon the heavy cloud of smog once again, and with a little flash of light from the center of his blue crystal, he recognized it. _It's the Voidables... They're stopping the ideya's production. They've been running rampant and taking over while I've been gone. Oh God, I've been gone for so long..._

Wait...Voidables? Yes, Voidables. Coming from the Void. His true enemies. How had he forgotten? He'd been fighting off the Voidables all his life! Maintaining the Balance... It was his very reason for existence. Now the Voidables were spilling over, taking over his realm--_his_ realm--and disrupting the Balance. 

The blue crystal at his chest twinkled at him again, fondly. 

Reala gently got up again, standing solidly at the edge of the skyscraper, gazing downwards as if to address the entire city itself. Yes. He knew everything now, and felt like an idiot for ever having forgotten it. This was his realm--he belonged here and never anywhere near Nightopia. The place where ideya were born within humans, before they traveled to Nightopia and shaped the landscape, hopefully avoiding the grasp of the Nightmaren. He was a part of this place itself--his very soul felt merged with its essence. And he had a duty to its people...to its continued flourishing life. 

He set his face into a determined, solid, resolute stare. He knew now. He knew that he had never been a Nightmaren, and he knew what he _had _always been. 

"My name is Reala," he announced, into the sea of swarming humans below him. "I am the master and guardian of the Waking World." 


	2. The Explorer

It's finished! Here's chapter two! I hope everyone had a happy Reala Day. I wore red and black all day and painted my nails pink! (...yeah, seriously...gosh, am I that much of a fangirl already?) Plus, I finally unlocked him on Sega Superstars Tennis! And I used NiGHTS to battle him. It was an epic showdown. At one point we were both making those crazy corkscrew things back and forth. I wanted to put this chapter up before April 1, but I just had too much work last week.

And so, Tiana comes in. The first part of this chapter may be kind of boring because it's just introducing her, but it'll pick up. No, she's not a self-insert, even though she might seem like it because she plays video games. I admit that Tiana is a _little_ bit like me in terms of interests and living situation, but her personality is nothing like mine.

"Lily" and "Stella" were actually two names I was considering for Tiana herself when I first thought her up. My mother actually helped me name her. For obvious reason, I wanted a name beginning with "Tee", but "Tina" and "Tiara" just didn't seem to fit her. Then, my Mom suggested "Tiana". Thank you, Mom!

I chose a lyre because I wanted a "serious" stringed instrument, and not the violin, because of its association with Helen.

I don't own Reala, Owl, or Dora the Explorer (er...you'll understand when you read it), but I do own Tiana, her friends, family, and all other associated characters.

And don't feel too bad for Tiana--she'll be getting some help soon!

(-)

Chapter 2: The Explorer

"We are concerned for Tiana's development."

The thin, middle-aged woman on the opposite side of the desk fixed him with a shocked and disbelieving expression. "Excuse me?" her red lipstick formed the words carefully.

"We believe that your daughter may not possess the social aptitude to progress in the world."

The woman only glared back. "Is she doing poorly in school?" she solidly asked. "Because, quite frankly, that's all 'we' should be concerned about here."

"Oh, no," the vice-principal replied, calmly waving her off and giving off a deep, musky smell of cologne. "Her grades are fine--though they _have _begun to slip lately."

The woman on the other side of his overcrowded desk was intimidating to say the least. She looked like she'd just run in from a conference somewhere--her gray suit jacket and skirt, and the way she kept her light brown hair up on the back of her head in a bun... _She _looked more like East Bridgeside High's vice-principal than he did. She tapped her red high-heeled shoe against the white tile in irritation. "Why is that then?" she demanded.

"Well, your daughter is a very bright student, really," the vice-principal continued, nervously combing his fat fingers through his graying hair. "Only I've noticed that her grades have begun to slip lately because of too many absences."

Now, the lady went back to looking purely shocked and confused. "Absences?! What do you mean?! That girl hasn't been sick for months! I've found the correct bus route to pick her up...she's supposed to be taking the bus to school every day..." And with that, her flustered state fell down into a disgruntled, angry one. "She's _supposed to be _taking the bus to school..."

The vice-principal nodded. "Just as I suspected. I didn't think that you were aware of these multiple absences. It's a shame, really. She's not a bad student. She does have an aptitude for learning...but her social ineptitude often prevents her from doing so."

The lady clenched one fist in frustration. "I can't believe this. I fly over here from a job interview, halfway across the city, just to learn that my daughter has been skipping school..."

The vice-principal blinked his baggy eyes, entwining his hands against his desk in consideration. "Ms. Weaver..."

"Call me Christie!"

Ms. Weaver sighed, realizing how angry she sounded and tried again. "Please...I prefer that you call me Christie..."

"Yes...Christie..." the vice-principal modified. "...I think it would be best if you invested in some other service to get your daughter to school. Perhaps you could ask someone to take her..."

Ms. Weaver visibly swallowed her reply and gave off a polite "Yes, thank you. I'm sure that would work wonderfully."

The vice-principal cocked one bushy gray eyebrow. He was well aware that she was stifling herself, but there was really nothing he could do about it. While the school did have the rights to intervene on students' academic performance, it couldn't do anything about their parents' own method of child-rearing. And the vice-principal had plenty of reason to suspect that the Weaver household wasn't exactly an academically fostering environment. "I might also suggest a good after-school program--it would help her to grow and interact with the other students..."

"Yes, thank you, sir, I'll look into that too."

"Well, I suppose that takes care of our main concerns," the vice-principal at last spoke up. "Thank you for your time, Ms. Wea--er, Christie."

"And thank you for the useful information. Please keep me informed if these absences continue."

"Of course."

Ms. Weaver eagerly got out of her bendable steel chair and made for the wooden office door, her high-heels clicking against the cheap white tile. _"Get someone to take her" yeah, sure. And where am I supposed to get the money to pay that someone to take her? With the price of gas these days, no one I know would drive her all that way for free. And there's no way she'd ever go to an after-school program. She'd call it a waste of her time. She doesn't like to play sports or go other places with her classmates... This is really hopeless. I've already got her in therapy--what more am I supposed to do?_

"Hi, Mom!"

"Aaaaugh!" Ms. Weaver nearly jumped out of her business suit. As soon as she exited the office, the very teenage girl that they'd been discussing was standing right in front of her. "Tiana!" she cried. "Have you been sitting outside here the whole time?!"

"Yup."

Ms. Weaver sighed. She should have known. Tiana would certainly eavesdrop on their conversation. In fact, she should have been expecting it.

Tiana stared back at her with half-lidded, skeptical deep brown eyes. Her dark brown hair was scraggly as always, hanging in tangles below her shoulder-blades. Today, she had on a long-sleeved, purple shirt with striped designs on the sleeves and a regular pair of blue jeans. Her gray bag hung over one shoulder, across her chest, weighed down with notebooks. Her skin looked even paler against her dark clothing. She had that familiar, jaded, "I've-heard-it-all-before" look on her face again. As if she didn't care. And she didn't.

Her flustered mother let out an exasperated sigh. "Fine. There's only a few more minutes left anyway--you may as well come back with me now. I've got a lot to talk to you about, young lady."

Tiana just shrugged and walked back down the hallway to get her jacket out of her locker. Stay, leave, it didn't really make any difference. She yanked out her slim silver jacket and slammed the powder-blue metal door closed, slipping the lock back on in a wink.

Ms. Weaver cringed as the metal clanging reverberated through the empty hallways. Didn't she care if someone found out? Apparently not, since she'd been skipping class so often.

"C'mon, let's go." Ms. Weaver clopped down the stone steps at the back entrance to East Bridgeside High School, pestering her daughter to zipper her jacket the whole way. Tiana groaned, but finally obeyed, completing the stitched black designs across the jacket's front flaps, though it was a bit difficult to zipper things underneath the strap of her shoulder bag.

If Ms. Weaver looked professional and upper-class in her gray business suit, all of that changed the moment she reached the side of her car. The thing was tiny, with only two doors, in a faded shade of forest green, while the interior was a rather ugly maroon hue. Tiana always said it looked like an olive, and she'd thus dubbed it the "olivesmobile" in her mind. But this was the only car they had.

Ms. Weaver shoved a briefcase behind her chair, into the back seat, making room for Tiana at the passenger's side. Tiana simply slung her shoulder bag in ahead of her, carefully seated herself on the far right of the maroon chair, avoiding the hole near the center, and yanked down her seatbelt.

Ms. Weaver glanced over at her, considering, as she made her preparations. No, no, she'd drive for a little while and give her a few moments to stew before she brought the subject up. Starting right in on her would get them nowhere. She already knew what the conference had been about, anyway. So, Ms. Weaver started up the olivesmobile, with a little difficulty, and was soon stringing in and out through the mess of streets in east Bellbridge.

Tiana stared out her window, watching the scenery as they went past. Tall corporate buildings with many tiny windows, dilapidated houses squeezed next to each other with four cars in every driveway, abandoned corner stores, their hand-painted signboards peeling off, the shiny new shopping plaza, its bold eye-catcher listing all of the available products--mostly clothing and footwear, a few small, hollowed out concrete blocks, probably the local community center or something... None of it mattered... None of it made any difference. All of it could be completely gone tomorrow morning, and it wouldn't even matter.

Ms. Weaver took a deep breath once she noticed her daughter comfortable and relaxed, staring out the window again "Tiana..." she softly began. "...Why haven't you been taking the bus like I asked?"

"I can't stand it," Tiana immediately answered. "There's no one nice on that bus route, and it's too noisy to even sit by myself and _think_."

"I know you don't like the bus, honey, but you've got to get to school _somehow_. It's not my fault--I had to get a second job, and the only hours available were six to twelve. I'm trying to find something else, so I can quit it, but..."

Tiana's eyes closed, halfway. She didn't want to listen to this again. It didn't matter. There's no way she could ever understand anyway. She yawned.

"And you've got to stay in school. I thought you _liked_ school--I don't understand why you would..."

"Mom, I liked school when I was in _third grade_."

At last, Ms. Weaver was beginning to pull up into a parking space on the side of the road, near another stretch of dilapidated, squeezed-together houses.

"I haven't liked school since we got to make finger paintings."

Ms. Weaver sighed again, as she just barely missed taking off the shiny red car's side mirror. "So what's the matter? You're not getting teased anymore, are you? You've got your friends--I figured they'd grow out of that by high school"

"No, I'm not getting teased," Tiana rolled her eyes.

Ms. Weaver jerked the car into park at last, inches away from the other cars' bumpers. The two of them got out, and Tiana continued her speech as they began to walk up to the gray-colored three-story with blue shutters.

"It's just that I don't see the point. Ninety-five percent of the stuff we learn in high school we'll never need to know for the rest of our lives, and I already know all I need to."

Now, Ms. Weaver really was mad, but she had to suck it in until they got upstairs. Mr. and Mrs. Panzini on the first floor had two babies and a three-year-old, and it was very likely that they were taking a nap about now.

Thinking she was making a point, Tiana rambled on in the same vein. "And seriously, I haven't really learned anything new in the past two months. At least nothing useful. It's really a watse of my time to spend six hours of the day doing something useless."

Ms. Weaver furiously unlocked the door of the third-floor apartment, pulling Tiana inside by her silver-and-black coat sleeve, and all but slamming it after them. "Don't you _dare_ think about dropping out of school, young lady! I personally am going to make sure that you graduate! Don't you have any sense in your head?! Do you want to end up like your father?! _Do you_?!"

"N-No..." Tiana sighed, knowing that was the correct answer. Well, truthfully, she _didn't _want to end up like her father, but that was a given. Who would want to end up like him?

Ms. Weaver slowly let out her breath, sinking into a nearby parlor chair and dropping her briefcase. "That's the most important thing, Tiana..." she softly spoke up. "Dropping out of high school...geez...I even went through the university and I can barely make enough to live on..."

Tiana scuttled off through the parlor, down the hallway to her room. When her mother got like this, there was just no use trying to talk to her. She was so used to these breakdowns by now that she could recognize the symptoms...and effectively avoid them. She flung her bag into one corner of her room, to be dealt with later. It didn't matter right now. In fact, it was probably the least important item in this entire room right now.

Tiana's room was a miniature "disaster area". Her bed was never made, her fluffy blue covers scrunched up at the bottom, against the wall. Random pieces of clothing, books, and papers were strewn across the cream-colored carpeting underneath. A wooden bookcase on the left side of the room had the top two shelves taken out to fit the small, round television and the metallic black box next to it. The shelves underneath weren't filled with books, but thin little plastic disk cases. All of her books were underneath her bed on a wheeling shoe rack. There was a small desk on the right side of the room, but it was so swamped with papers, books, and other random debris she wanted to save for some unknown reason that you couldn't even see her laptop compter. Yet she always knew exactly where everything was.

If her mother even tried to clean up her room, she flew into a rage. Some of those papers all over the floor and the desk were important, personal things that she didn't want anyone else to see. "Then why are they all over the floor?" her mother always asked. Tiana always argued that this was her own personal space and no one else should ever be in it that she was uncomfortable with seeing these. And that really _was_ no one.

Tiana plopped herself down on her bed, rearranging her sheets away from the bottom of the bed and the view of the television. Smiling, excitedly, she picked up one half-moon-shaped plastic device and pressed a few buttons near its center. The television blinked to life, and a strain of guitar music began to float out of the speakers.

All the way down the hall in the parlor, Ms. Weaver caught the familiar fanfare and sighed deeper. "Tiana!" she called. "Why don't you ever stop playing that stupid game and go out somewhere with your friends?"

"Not now!" Tiana yelped back. "I'm almost to the orgre king! And once I beat him, I'll be able to get the mystic blue armor..."

Ms. Weaver groaned. It was no use trying to talk to her now either. This, too, was all Daniel's fault. He'd been the one to introduce her daughter to video games...now she didn't care about anything else. Well, except maybe books...and the internet. Ms. Weaver would love to get rid of the internet altogether, but unfortunately, she was now dependent on it for her own personal financing. Without the internet, neither of them would have been able to live. And that just made another monthly bill that Ms. Weaver had to pay.

She closed her eyes and listened to the soothing musical chimes and characer voices of Battle Fantasy World Online. Daniel Weaver had been Tiana's biological father. Truly...he hadn't seemed like such an awful man. He'd been a good, attentive father...when Tiana was five. As time went on, he'd just seemed to lose interest, as if he'd only been trying out being a father, and now he was sick of it. Seven years ago, Mr. Weaver had just left them one day. And that was when Christie finally learned of the secrets he'd been keeping from her for years.

It had seemed like Daniel always had some spare change, and the family never had to struggle to stay financially stable. And Christie was about to find out why. Daniel had had a secret life in the back streets of east Bellbridge--not only did he have a girlfriend, but Christie would learn that the very next day, he had been caught and convicted of drug dealing.

She hadn't told Tiana all the detaills, of course, but then again, she just didn't seem to care. That was the one thing Ms. Weaver was afraid of. Tiana shared one small characteristic with her father--and that was her apathy to the world. She just didn't seem to care about anything except her own fantasy world, built by books and games and the computer. Daniel had been a high school dropout himself.

Ms. Weaver saw echoes of herself within Tiana as well, and it even scared her a little. Both mother and daughter even had the same first name--Christiana, though Ms. Weaver preferred "Christie" while Tiana was "Tiana".

Tiana had been in therapy since she was twelve, but that really didn't seem to do anything. She had figured out how to sit through the session and give her therapists the answers they were looking for. It was truly a waste of time, but Ms. Weaver kept her in the program, since they were getting free service, and maybe _someday_ Tiana might actually get somewhere. That would be a miracle.

(-)

Tiana couldn't believe that she was actually doing something her mother had suggested. Of course, it wasn't because her mother had suggested it. She was going out to the shopping plaza with her friends--but only because they called and invited her. Well, Stella had been the one to call, and then they'd decided to ask Lily too. And of course, when Tiana asked her mother if she could go out to the shopping plaza with Stella and Lily, she automaically agreed. Though, in her heart, Tiana was actually kind of disappointed. She'd been in the middle of going to find the mystic blue armor when Stella called, and she'd had to leave before her party found it, meaning she wouldn't get to share it.

She sighed, heavily, as she slipped back into her silvery jacket. No one else in her entire high school played Battle Fantasy World Online--she doubted that anyone else even had a PolyPack. Stella and Lily certainly didn't.

Oh well. This trip was going to be a complete waste of her time...the only point was to make her mother happy and to keep her friends as her friends. Really, Tiana didn't even need them--she had plenty of friends online...friends in her head... But, still, she needed some kind of friends at her school, otherwise, she'd be sitting alone at lunch and the teasing might start up again. So she put up with Stella and Lily. They weren't that bad.

The two of them arrived downstairs at three-thirty, and Tiana hurried down to greet them before they were caught in an embarrassing, awkward conversation with the Panzini family. Though Stella didn't mind the three-year-old, since she had several younger brothers and sisters at home.

Stella was from a big family, also fairly poor, on another side-street of east Bellbridge. She came from an immigrant family, her darker, tanned skin an obvious sign of her "otherness", along with her curly black hair and big brown eyes. She was sort of a tomboy and always wore a tee-shirt and jeans.

On the other hand, Lily wore "girly" things a lot--frilly shirts and high-fashion shoes. She came from a middle-class family, with only one older brother. Her straight blond hair and green eyes gave off an intimidating "popular" front, though she was actually extremely shy and avoided for that fact. Stella, being the loudmouth she was, had taken Lily under her wing and they'd been best friends since middle school, before they met Tiana at the beginning of high school.

When Tiana arrived at the front stoop, carrying the small roll of bills she had left in her jacket pocket, she found Stella actually fending off Mr. Second Floor's dog, while Lily cowered against the doorway.

"Hey, yeah, that's it, ya big mutt, keep on walkin'..."

"Don't provoke him, Stella..."

"Don't worry about him," Stella replied. "He'd just bored. He's looking for someone to play with. ...Yeah, that's it--here, have a stick."

"Let's go, guys," Tiana announced as she stepped out in front of Lily. "Never mind him."

"B-But he was glaring at me..." Lily replied, nervously clutching her arms around her body--she was a little on the chunky side.

"Well, then, let's get outta here!" Stella agreed, yanking her out of the doorway and up beside Tiana, who was already halfway down the driveway.

The shopping plaza was only a few blocks from Tiana's house, so they could simply walk there without worrying about getting lost. And Ms. Weaver knew that if anything happened, Tiana could simply call on her cell phone and she could be there in a few minutes.

As they began to walk down the sidewalk together, Tiana frowned down into her near-empty pocket. She wouldn't have enough to actually buy anything, but at least she could humor Stella and Lily by trying on clothes with them. She and Lily did love to try on big, expensive dresses and pretend they were princesses sometimes. Though Tiana was more of the "warrior princess" type. Whenever she was a princess, she was a princess with a wealth of mystical powers and karate skills.

And so that was exactly where she found herself ten minutes later. Surprisingly, Stella also liked to try on clothes, though it was mostly jeans and sporty type clothing. One time, Lily had forced her to try on a dress with her, and they'd laughed the whole time at her inexperience with long dresses. Tiana willingly sat through Lily's myriad of multicolored "prep" shirts and even tried a few sculpted shirts that she thought were pretty.

Unlike her two friends, Tiana didn't really have a "style" of her own. She just wore whatever she thought looked good. Sometimes it was "preppy", sometimes "punk". sometimes "light goth", sometimes "sporty", and sometimes just "something pretty". Mostly, it was a mix of styles from day to day.

The only thing she never bothered with was makeup. She could sympathize with Stella on that point. It was simply a waste of time. She wasn't about to spend an hour in front of a mirror, smearing goop on her face just so that boys would be attracted to her. Tiana had no interest in boys anyway.

Unfortunately, Lily and Stella still did. Whenever they got into one of their "gossip chatter" conversations, Tiana just retreated inside her own mind and started planning out the things she would do once she got home.

_Well, first of all I need to log back on and see if there's any mystic blue armor left. Then, I think I'll try a little of that new Flopper racing game...though I bet the one-player is boring... Oh, and I want to make up those stat sheets for the other characters in my party! I was gonna read Atlantic Dragon Chronicles today too..._

"You're not getting anything?"

Tiana popped out of her schedule-planning when Lily stepped in front of her, holding two large paper shopping bags with corded straps.

"Nah," Tiana replied as she got from her seat near the store window and dusted off her jeans. "I haven't got much money, since Mom's going crazy looking for some new job. She can't afford to let me blow it."

"Oh." Lily frowned. She couldn't really understand that situation, since _her_ mother had always been able to give her money whenever she went out with friends.

Stella joined them at the front entrance a few minutes later, holding a simple plastic bag with one tee-shirt she had really liked. "Well, I 'spose we oughta get going," she said, looking down at her black digital watch. "My Dad said he'd be by your house to pick us up at five."

"Okay," Tiana indifferently replied. And though she smiled and agreed along with her friends' conversation, she was only half-listening to it the entire time. All she truly wanted to do was get home as fast as she could to see if she could still get some of that armor. She made up what she was going to say to the other characters online if they hadn't set aside a set of armor for her. _...And it was my healing magic which saved you all in the first place._

"I can't believe Eliza said that! Does she even know that Tom likes her?"

_I'm a second class archer elf, so the mystic blue armor actually goes with my job assignment..._

"...that Spanish test was ridiculous. I don't even remember half those words..."

_You could have at least put one aside for me in your item chest..._

"...yeah, I talked to him last night and he said that he'd think about it..."

_Fine, then. I'm going to find a new party._

"...using an ideya."

Tiana's thoughts ground to a halt. "What?!" she snapped at Lily and Stella. "Did you just call me an idiot?!"

They slowed to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk and wrinkled their faces at her, confusedly. "Uh...we didn't say anything about anyone being an idiot," Stella assured her.

"Gee, you really are insecure, aren't you?" Lily added, a bit worried.

"Oh, sorry," Tiana quickly apologized. _It couldn't have been them_, she'd just realized, _that voice was way too deep to be theirs. It sounded like a man. _Maybe she'd just picked up some guy's conversation...though there was absolutely no one on the sidewalk in their vicinity. "I thought I just heard someone say idiot."

"You probably did, but it wasn't us," Stella replied. "There's plenty of nut jobs in this neighborhood who could've been yelling it out their bedroom windows."

"...Though I have no idea _why _I have to have an ideya. I guess it repels them or something..."

Tiana nearly jumped out of her skin. Her head whipped around, towards an alleyway between two houses, just in back of Lily and Stella. The voice was much louder and clearer this time...and it was coming from there!

"There it is again!" she hissed, hoping whoever it was wouldn't hear her. He wasn't actually saying "idiot", she realized. It sounded like "idia". Well, maybe he just had a strange accent. But...he had to have an idiot? That...didn't sound good at all.

Now Stella and Lily's faces were even more scrunched. Stella's mouth was even drooped all the way down like a bulldog. "Er...I didn't hear anything," Lily admitted.

Stella crossed her arms. "Tiana, if you're trying to convince us that you hear ghosts again, it isn't going to work."

Now, a shiver of real fear and apprehension wiggled through her heart. She remembered that day--she'd pretended to hear otherworldly, disembodied voices, just to scare her friends during their last Halloween party. But now...she might actually be hearing them. Her heartbeat quickened a little as she stared down that alleyway.

The ghost-man sighed. "I really don't like that part."

"Y-You...you didn't hear that?" Tiana softly asked her friends again, just to make sure.

Lily and Stella shook their heads, Lily with a look of awe, and Stella rolling her eyes.

"I'm _serious_," Tiana added, still in her hushed whisper. "There's some guy's voice. It's coming from right over there."

Lily gave a startled gasp when she pointed just behind her, though Stella only became even more skeptical. "Yeah, sure. There's a ghost! And he's _right behind us_! Like I'm gonna fall for that again."

Tiana gritted her teeth. That was it. She couldn't take any more of Stella's attitude. She'd just have to prove it to her. Though she really didn't want to... "Fine," she boldly spoke up, through her wavering courage. "If there's really no ghost, why don't you go into that alley and find out?"

"You're the one who can _hear_ it," Stella argued back. "You come with me and tell me where it is."

"Fine." Tiana sucked in her breath and pushed past them.

The disembodied man had fallen silent for the moment, so she had to navigate from her general sense of where she'd last heard him.

Stella marched straight after her, and Lily followed, just not wanting to be left behind. "I really don't think we should be doing this," her quivering voice whispered. "People get _killed_ in places like this, you know."

"It's still broad daylight," Stella hissed back to her. "And it's not that far off the main road. I don't think anyone is going to try to kill us now." But poor Lily was still trembling with fright.

Tiana scanned the alleyway, sharing in her sentiments. Oh, God...Oh, God, what in the world was going on here? This was like something out of her well-thumbed fantasy novels. Why had the voice suddenly disappeared?

And as soon as she wondered, it came again. A deep, heavy sigh seeped out. Very close. Automatically, she turned towards it. And froze. It felt as if her heart had stopped. It felt as if she was someone else. It felt as if she was in a nightmare. She was too stunned to breathe, too shocked to scream.

Only a few yards in front of them...sitting on top of a trash can...was the strangest thing she had ever seen in her life. At first, she thought it was a clown. But the more she stared at it, the more the terrifying realization crept in that this thing wasn't exactly human. Its feet were much too large, its arms and legs impossibly skinny. Its skin was pale blue...and its head was...hovering over its body, without the aid of a neck.

Gently, it turned its horned head...and its two blazing blue eyes made contact with her own.

Whatever color had been in Tiana's face before completely drained out of it now. She would die. She knew it. She was going to die right here on the spot.

An instant later, it turned its head back into its hand...a thoughtful position. "Ah...just a stupid one and a couple of three-sets..." That same deep voice she'd heard before now came sliding out of its shiny black lips. And this time, it chilled her heart even more.

Stella stepped up, completely unaffected, and noticed her expressions. "Oh! So that's where it is, huh?"

Tiana nearly had a heart attack. She was going to attract its attention again! But, thankfully, the creature didn't even turn to look at them again. It looked like it was ignoring them. Or it was simply immersed in its own thoughts.

"I-It's not a ghost," she whispered, grabbing tight to Stella's arm to hold her back.

"Then what is it?" she brazenly objected. "ESP? Alien invaders?!"

_Alien invaders? Oh my gosh, maybe it really _is _an alien! Then how come they can't see it? I can't just be delusional...right? _Tiana had heard about hallucinations feeling so real that you couldn't tell the difference. But this...why would she hallucinate about an alien clown? It didn't make any sense.

Lily softly stepped up behind them, clutching her fingers to her mouth, her two shopping bags in one hand.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Stella moved to take a step forward, but Tiana yanked back on her arm with all her strength. "N-No! Stella, I'm dead serious. Don't go near there. There's...there's a creature..."

"A creature? An invisible creature? Ooh, is it a fairy? How bout an elf? A goul? A goblin? Come on, Tiana. You've been reading way too many fantasy novels."

"N-no!" she hissed back. "It's really there. I'm serious. It's...it's some kind of alien...clown...demon..."

Stella burst into terribly loud laughter. "An alien clown demon! Oh, man, that's a good one!"

It shifted again, and Tiana's heart froze in her chest, her hand falling away from Stella's arm. It had noticed again.

Its head turned to them again. Those eyes again...that face. Tiana suddenly realized that it had no nose...its eyes were shaped like ellipses, with black curved markings running through them. It was so strange...and terrifying. And this time, it didn't turn away. Its alien eyes blazed straight into her own. She felt her soul being ripped away from her. She was going to die...

Stella yawned.

Tiana stared back. And that settled it.

Violently tearing away, the creature leapt from the trash can with inhuman swiftness...and hung there, suspended in the air above them.

Tiana couldn't help but release a small yelp, every limb of her body trembling. She was lucky she didn't hit the ground at that very moment.

Stella glanced over at her. "_Now_ what?"

Lily rushed forward to grip Tiana's shoulders, concerned as ever. "Stella!" she cried. "Stop it! I think something's really wrong with her! She's having some kind of hallucination! We need to call the hospital!"

"So you can see me, can't you?"

Oh God. Oh God, oh God. It was talking to her. Oh God. It really knew she was there...that only she could see it.

"Y...Y-Y-Y-Yes..." Tiana nearly forgot how to speak English. She felt lightheaded. This couldn't be real. This couldn't truly be real. Lily was right. She was hallucinating. This wasn't really happening.

"And a one..." it continued, more it itself. "There was something special about the ones... I suppose it might be the same here..."

"I left my cell phone in the car!" Stella suddenly realized, a panicked note in her voice. "I can't call the hospital! Don't you have one?"

"But I don't know the number!"

"Just dial the emergency line!"

"I-I-I don't know if this is enough of an emergency. She'd not really hurt, and..."

"Tell me your name."

She had forgotten it. It took her a moment to recover it again. "T-T-T-Tiana. Well, Christiana. C-Christiana Weaver."

"Well, at least we know she still remembers her name."

_Just barely_. Tiana was relieved to find that she was able to think again. She'd have to think. She was going to keep thinking.

"And you're a one..."

_What's a one? A one what? _

"Tiana? Tiana, can you hear us?" Stella cried.

"Are you okay?!" Lily anxiously added.

"Y-Y-Yeah..." she fuzzily replied. How in the world couldn't they see this _thing_?!

It crossed its long, spindly arms. "You want to know what I am, don't you?" it said to her again. "And why you're the only one who can see me?"

Tiana knew that she should be even more freaked out by the fact that it knew what she was thinking...but somehow, that statement almost comforted her. Maybe it was going to tell her, maybe there was a good reason, maybe she wasn't going crazy...maybe it wasn't going to hurt her.

"Get rid of your stupid little friends, and I'll tell you."

_My "stupid little friends"? It...it wants me...alone. It wants me alone, so it can attack me... It probably wants to kill me...if it's an alien invader... _"N-N-No," Tiana was surprised at her own defiance. "No, you'll...you'll hurt me..."

"We're_ not_ hurting you!" Lily called into her ear. "We're right here, Tiana! We're trying to help you! C'mon, snap out of it!"

The creature uttered another loud, frustrated sigh, and lowered a bit, closer to her. "I'm not going to kill you, okay? Even if you are a one. That would just be counterproductive, now wouldn't it? I need you to do something for me...possibly. But if you're going to be like that, I'll just go find someone else. There's got to be more somewhere in this city..."

_It needs me to _do_ something for it?! But...then why can't my friends be here? Why does it need me alone? _She wanted to outright ask, but was simply too afraid. The thing looked like it was getting ticked off already, pressing a hand to its red-and-black, horned head. Well...if this was the only way she'd ever find out...

Tiana sucked in all of her breath, composing herself as much as she could...and gently opened her eyes towards the panicked faces of Lily and Stella again. Forcibly, she prodded her face into a smile. "Ha ha! Gee, you guys! I got you again!"

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the creature lifting its head again at her voice. Oh God. What was she doing? Was she really about to give herself over to this thing?

_Well, I guess it doesn't really matter_, she decided. _As long as it doesn't kill me. If it kidnaps me or takes me away somewhere... Maybe I'd get to see its home planet...or something else..._

Stella and Lily's face automatically relaxed. Stella was visibly angry. She whapped her over the head with all her might.

"Oww!"

"I told you to stop doing that!" she yelled at her. "It's not funny! Me and Lil were getting ready to call the hospital! If you ever try that stunt again, that's it! I won't be your friend anymore!"

"S-Sorry..." Tiana truly felt upset. It wasn't her fault, she wanted to scream. But they'd never believe her, especially now. "I won't do that again. I was just...trying to make things interesting."

"Well, don't," Stella replied, beginning to walk away and grabbing Lily's shoulder. "You're the weirdest person I've ever met in my entire life, and I won't let you do stupid things like that to us anymore."

Lily looked back at her as her best friend pulled her away, slightly worried, but still a bit disturbed and angry.

"C'mon, Lil, my dad's already at her house--she's been wasting our time that long. Let's get outta here."

"Bye."

"Um...bye..." Tiana felt her entire life sinking as her eyes remained fixed on the back of her two friends with their shopping bags, storming off down the sidewalk towards her house. _Great. Now they hate me. What am I going to do at school from now on? Well, I haven't been going to school lately anyway... But Mom would kill me if I dropped out... Oh, God... Why?! Why did this have to happen?!_

That low voice began again behind her...wavering. It almost sounded like it was chuckling.

Tiana whirled back around. All at once, she wasn't afraid of it anymore. She just wanted to punch it, straight through its clownish, nose-less face.

The creature had since lowered itself to the ground again, now standing no more than three feet in front of her. It was taller than her, but not by too much. She came to just below its head. "Oh, dear," its low, mocking voice slipped out. "_That_ was amusing. Well, I do tend to have that sort of effect on people..."

"So what are you and what do you want?" Tiana snapped. This better be worth it, if she'd had to go through all that. She wanted the answers right now!

"Oh, so now you're going to get all snippy with me, huh? Just because I made your little friends go away? And they weren't even that important to you." The creature floated up a little again, to sit with its legs and arms crossed in mid-air. "See? Thay's why I've always hated children. They don't make any sense."

"I'm not a child!" Tiana argued back. "I'm sixteen!"

"Oh, excuse me, _teenagers_. Well, I hate teenagers even more. They're just big, whiny packages of melodrama. 'Oh my God! Steven doesn't want to go to the dance with me! My life is _over_!'"

Tiana gritted her teeth. "I'm not like that. Though I do know plenty of people who are."

One of the creature's eyes widened, as if raising an eyebrow. It uncurled itself again and gently touched back down to the ground next to her. "My name is Reala," it announced, as if finally deeming her worthy of receiving this information. "And I am a Ni--er...um...a...realm guardian? Yes. A realm guardian. You are only able to see me because you possess only one ideya, and you need my assistance in order to create the rest."

_A realm guardian? What the heck is a realm guardian? It sounds like something out of Battle Fantasy World. And there he goes with that "idia" stuff again..._

Tiana suddenly realized that she was thinking of this thing as a "he" rather than an "it". Now that he had a name, he seemed just a tiny bit more human, and that deep voice certainly seemed to suggest masculinity.

Reala noticed the confused look on her face and sighed deeply again. "Long story short, I'm the guardian of your realm--the Waking World. This reality. This planet. Whatever. Every person is supposed to grow five of these energy things inside them called ideya while in this world. But you humans have stopped producing ideya lately, and I'm supposed to help start it up again. You've only managed to create one ideya inside you, and so you're able to see me because you need me to help you create the rest. Not that I feel inclinded in any way to help you, of course."

Tiana skeptically stared straight back at him. "So...you're the guardian of this planet? Like some kind of superhero? No wonder I hate it so much..."

Reala took a deep breath and tried to explain. "Well, something has happened, and I have been away from my realm for a very long time. Since then, the Voidables have been multiplying and they've begun to overrun this world. Normally, I would be able to simply fight them off, but there are so many now, and so little ideya in this world that I must have an ideya inside of me for my power to affect them at all."

"What the heck is a Voidable?"

Reala groaned again, clearly becoming aggravated with all of her questions. "Okay, believe it or not, there are these little monster-like creatures all around your world called the Voidables, and they come from a place called the Void. Their only purpose is to spread throughout this world, halt the production of ideya, and completely take it over for themselves. You may not have seen them before, but I'm sure you've seen their handiwork. Now, let me explain what I need you to do..."

Tiana's head was whirling as she tried to process this deluge of information. She had something inside her called an "ideya", everyone was supposed to have five of them, and this creature needed one to defend the planet from monsters called Voidables from the Void. Now this _really _sounded like some kind of video game. Tiana had so many other things to ask, but Reala looked like he was getting ready to tear her face off if she tried interrupting him with another question.

"Now, unfortunately, I can't just take an ideya out of someone and put it inside myself. No. That would be too easy. I have to 'become one' with them to get it inside me. And I can only do this with someone who is able to see me--someone in need of my assistance, who wouldn't be able to grow the rest of their ideya if I didn't intervene. Obviously, you're one of these people. Now you see what I need you to do."

Now, Tiana was not only confused, but beginning to quiver with anxiety. "You need to..._become one _with me to get the ideya inside me inside of you? ...What do you plan to do, eat me?!"

Reala rolled his oddly-shaped eyes. "If it were that simple, I would've eaten you already and not wasted so much time with this useless explanation."

_What _is _an "ideya" really? _Tiana wondered. _He said it's a kind of energy. Maybe that's why I can't feel it. How come I never knew it was there before? I would think that if I had any kind of weird energy inside me, I would've felt it. But everyone's supposed to have five... How come no one else knows about this? Like doctors and scienists? Haven't they seen people's ideya? _She gazed, in wonderment, down at her body...her silver jacket and jeans. "How do you know I have an ideya in me?" she gently asked. "I...I never even knew about it before."

"I can sense it, of course. With my sensors." Reala shook his head a little, causing the red-and-black striped horn things on his head to wave. "You've got the Blue Ideya of Intelligence...though I have to doubt that, considering how little you know. I could already tell that you certainly didn't have the Courage Ideya..."

Tiana gritted her teeth and ignored him. The fact was, rough and surly as he was, there was something about him that oddly struck a chord with her. She liked the way he didn't sugar-coat anything. Everything was blunt and to the point. Whenever she asked a question, especially of her mother, she'd never gotten a straight, plain, outright answer. She imagined that instead of a kind doctor murmuring "Okay, this might pinch just a teeny bit, but it'll all be over in a minute", Reala would say "This is going to hurt like hell. Now gimme your arm." She admired that kind of brutal honesty, because she never got it from anyone else, and somehow, those circuitous replies seemed even crueler.

"Okay..." she slowly spoke up again, her voice low and resolute. "...how do you 'become one with me', then?"

"We Dualize," Reala simply said, taking one step closer to her and staring coldly down into her face. "And your spirit will become one with mine inside my body. It's something special that we realm guardians can do. Well, besides flying. And sensing ideya. And morphing. But I hate doing that. All we have to do is join hands and wish for it."

Tiana had to take another pause to consider. And that's when she realized that _she _was in the situation of control here. She had to agree and wish for their merge. There was nothing forcing her to do it. The creature had said himself that she was only one of possibly many other people out there with the ability to do this... "So..." she asked, point-blank this time. "Why should I?"

Reala again widened his right eye, interestedly. "Why, don't you want to save your world? If the Voidables take over, there will be no such thing as reality anymore."

"You just said it doesn't have to be me. Why should _I _save the world? I'm sure someone else would do it. I don't even like the world. In fact, I hate it. I hate reality. There's absolutely no need for it. Nothing would make me happier than to just live inside my own fantasies for the rest of my life."

Tiana's heart suddenly gave a start. What? Why had she just said that? These were some of the things she thought about, privately, but had never given voice to before... She couldn't say these sorts of things to other people, because she knew they would instantly start lecturing her. But, somehow, she felt she could just blurt it out to this creature. He wasn't one of them...and a part of her even felt that he already knew.

"And what about all the other people in this world?" Reala continued. He glided around her, towards the entrance to the alleyway, looking back. "What about them, hmm? Don't you care that you might condemn the entire human race into oblivion?"

"No." Tiana was shocked at her own voice, but she had to continue. She had to answer with what was truly ingrained in her soul... "No, I don't care. Why _should_ I care? The human race has never done anything for me. I don't know all those people--they're not my friends. I'll never know them, and what does it matter to me what happens to them?"

A faint smile played across Reala's black lips for just a second. "Okay, then. You'll just never get your ideya and remain incomplete for the rest of eternity, and be the one single person responsible when the Universe ceases to exist and all of life becomes consigned to the Dreaming World forever. But I don't care. Why should I care? You've never done anything for me."

Tiana gritted her teeth in frustration to hear her own words echoed back at her. "Yeah? Well, how come _you_ want to save the world? You're not a human. You're not a part of it."

"I don't," Reala replied, that same funny little smile flickering across his face again. "I simply want my realm back. I only want to fight the Voidables because they're slowly taking away what's supposed to be mine, and I can't just stand by and let them. I _am _entirely selfish." He lifted his arms, resting the bottom of his head in his hand. "That's one thing, it seems, we have in common."

Yes. Tiana couldn't help but agree. There was just something about this situation... She could say anything. She felt...freer with this strange creature than she had ever felt with any of her friends, or even with her mother. Though Reala taunted her about it, she knew...that he wasn't really judging her based on her answers. In fact, speaking her mind almost made him...pleased.

"Y-Yeah... I guess so..." Slowly, without even being fully aware of her actions, she began to take a few steps forward. _I...want to know...more...more about this "realm" business, and the Voidables... Maybe...maybe I might actually enjoy it... Maybe I could be...myself..._

"It's not as simple as taking up this task for a few hours and then going back to normal," Reala's cold, firm voice warned, halting her forward movements. "You would be entering into a contract. You would be bound to complete your development with me... You'd have to see and hear a few things that you might not like...and you wouldn't be able to retract your offer later. This is a long and difficult process..."

"It doesn't matter!" Tiana bluntly insisted. "I've made up my mind! I want to go with you to fight the monster things! And...and I don't care what happens in the process! I'm sure I can handle it."

Reala at last brought himself down from his hover and now he was the one moving towards her. "Are you absolutely sure?" his deep, grave voice spoke again. "There's no going back once we have Dualized."

"Yes," Tiana's mind and voice said, at exactly the same time. "Yes, I want to do this. It's not like I have anything better to do anyway."

Reala raised his arms, holding his hands out to her, palms up. The expression on his face was completely indiscernible. She might have described it as "solemn", but there was no emotion behind it at all. Then again, she had expected as much from him.

_"There's no going back once we have Dualized." _The instant her hands met his, they would become bound to each other, until the journey was over. Until Tiana had all of her ideya, and the Voidables were vanquished back to where they had come from. There _was _no going back.

_Ah, well, _Tiana decided. _I'll take that risk. If I die, oh well. I won't have to go to school anymore. This world doesn't matter to me..._ And at last, with that defiant thought, Tiana reached out, turning her head up to look into Reala's emotionless, alien face...and gently slipped her hands into his.

The moment they made contact, a brilliant white spray of sparkles burst out from that very spot. The light particles multiplied, spreading up and over the two of them like a warm, pure white dome.

Tiana squinted, trying to see past her wrists, but it was useless. Reala had completely disappeared into the glaring white universe, though she _knew_ he was still there...even though she couldn't feel his hands against hers anymore. Strangely enough, a blast of air then shot up from underneath her, blowing the ends of her jacket and her long, messy hair upwards, splaying brilliantly around her head like a lion's mane.

"Wh-What's going on?" she called out, hoping to get some sort of explanation from Reala. There was no answer at all. Not even a noise indicating that he had heard her or that he was ignoring her. And yet, she was still certain that he was there. It was...a _presence_.

She was...moving upwards, she realized. Into the air. Like she was in some sort of elevator, created by the blinding white sparkles. Higher and higher...how high up were they now? My gosh, she'd surely die if she fell from this height. Well, she'd said she didn't mind dying. Was Reala trying to kill her now? Had this all been some big, elaborate plot to get her to trust him? And then, just when Tiana's skepticism began to near its peak, the sparkles burst back out of existence.

"Aaaaaaaugh!!" A surge of terror shot up through her entire body...but then immediately faded away. Somehow, she was hanging, suspended in the middle of the air over the back streets of east Bellbridge. There was absolutely nothing there holding her up...and yet she felt strangely comfortable and solid. She knew she wasn't going to fall. Why _was_ that?

Tiana raised one of her hands to hold it up over the tiny replica of her city below.

"..._Eeeyaaaaaaah_!!"

Her hand was..._not _her hand! It was blue, with long, sharpened nails...and hovered over her red-and-black cuff without the aid of a wrist. A moment later, that very same hand was slapping her across the face. "_Ow_! What the...?!"

"Your soul may be inside of my body now, but it's always up to _me_ to decide when you get to control it," a deep, stern voice snapped from somewhere inside her own head. It wasn't a voice out loud--it was almost as if she herself had thought that line...but she knew it wasn't her.

"...Reala?" she replied, searching for the creature's presence. She could feel it plain and clear. _Wait...did he just say "inside my body"? _

"Yes, you're inside my body now," Reala's voice answered her, reading her mind. "And you're going to have to follow _my _rules, you understand?"

Tiana's excitement drooped a little. Oh well. She couldn't run off and make him put on a dress and dance the hula. That would have been fun.

"And don't you even _think_ about it either."

Oh boy. What had she gotten herself into?

"Now," Reala asserted himself inside of her mind and blocked out all of her former thoughts. "Ideally, in this situation, we would both have the same goal--to defeat the Voidables. But since this is our first Dualization, and there are no Voidables here at the moment, I will take charge of your soul and simply show you what to do."

_This is so weird..._ Tiana couldn't help but think. She tried to look down at herself again, but something froze her movements and fought back against her intentions. Well, she knew that instead of herself, she would've seen Reala's body instead, but still... This was just so creepy... That force she had felt freezing her head had probably been Reala denying her permission to move his head.

"Okay then..."

With a little spark of panic, Tiana felt herself being nudged forwards. It was like there was something behind her, pushing her, and all of a sudden, she found herself stretched horizontally forward, arms outstretched, as if she was swimming. Only she didn't need to stroke--her body seemed to be moving forward, gliding gently through the sky on its own. Or rather, Reala's body was gliding through the sky and she could feel it.

"That's how you fly. Pretty boring. Now, we can just release a burst of energy to go a little faster..."

"_Eeeeyaaaaaaaaaaah_!!" a terrible shriek burst out of Tiana's soul as she felt herself shooting forwards at a very high speed, rapidly spinning in a continuous barrel roll.

Reala sighed, easing up on his drill dash, though he had to give thanks that the one part of his body Tiana couldn't control was his mouth. "I can't do that for very long, but I can already tell that you'll have no problem conserving the energy. You're going to have to get used to it, kid, or I'll have to force you into it."

"Y-Y-Yes..." Tiana barely found the heart to reply. This was just getting more and more complicated. _It's okay_, she reminded herself, _I'm safe. I'm not going to fall. I'm _not_ going to fall. I'm not going to die. I'm not going to die. I'm _not _going to die..._

"Only if you pay attention to what I'm trying to teach you, you won't!"

Tiana bit her lips and braced herself. Her body was being yanked forward again, a bit roughly. Then, all in one fluid movement, she felt her body being pulled up...and around. For a split second, she hung upside down before plummeting back down and zooming comfortably back into a gentle glide. She didn't even get a chance to scream this time, though her heart was pounding all the same. With a peculiar whooshing noise, several flies were then sucked into a black hole that had briefly appeared in the air behind them. _What was...?!_

"That was a paraloop," Reala answered her question before she could even finish asking it. "An essential skill. In fact, that's how we'll be defeating most of the Voidables. It sends them back to the Void where they came from."

"...So anything that gets caught in the paraloop gets sent to the Void?"

"Obviously. And why did you feel the need to repeat the exact same thing that I just told you?"

Tiana frowned. She seriously had no idea. Just...trying to make conversation, maybe? She shuddered to think that she was falling into the same conventions as her friends. Saying things like "How are you today?" when they really couldn't give a rat's behind. That's when she noticed, confusedly, that she was beginning to gently fall back into a vertical position.

"And that's really about it. They'll be some energy rings showing up in the places we need to go, so we'll need to fly through those. But other than that..."

Tiana felt herself drifting downwards...slowly, lazily, like a leaf.

"They'd be more obstacles in the way closer to the ground..."

Closer to the ground? The ground _was_ getting closer.

"Jeez, kid, are you going to practice or not?! Keep stalling like this and you really _will_ die!"

"Ah-u-uh!" Tiana leaped back, startled at his sudden snap, and watched her large, red-booted feet wave out in front of her. _Oh! _she suddenly realized, easily stretching her arms forward and watching in amazement as the white sleeves followed. _He's letting me control his body now so I can practice! _

"Obviously," Reala replied. "I relinquished my body to you a whole thirty seconds ago and you didn't even notice a thing. I'm really going to have to check on this so-called Ideya of Intelligence you supposedly possess..."

_Am I going to have to put up with this the entire time?_

"Yup. You accepted the contract. It's all your fault."

Tiana sighed, but fell silent as she awkwardly began to push herself forward, pretending she was swimming. It _was _a bit like swimming, she thought, except she was swimming through the air...and something just seemed to naturally push her forwards without the aid of paddling. The wind was rushing around her and over her and she got comfortable and started speeding up. It was actually quite refreshing...and exhilarating.

"Wow!" Tiana opened her eyes to see the tiny figurines of people and cars whizzing by below her, between the blocky, multicolored roofs of the cramped buildings. "This is so cool! I'm really _flying_! Woooooo!!"

Reala groaned loudly, but Tiana had made up her mind to ignore him and just have fun. This was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to her!

She turned herself downwards, falling into a light dive and pulling herself up again at the end. It felt like going down a slide, except there was no slide underneath her to get in the way. "Weheeeee! Wooohooo! _Woooo_hooo!"

Reala had long since retreated into his own mind, ignoring her as well. This would all be over in a few more minutes, and then he'd never have to deal with it again. Just let her do her thing now...

Tiana sucked in a breath of the cool, rushing fresh air and turned herself skyward. She could do this. She'd already done it. She just needed to concentrate.

Higher...higher...then...turn over backwards... Turn right over... Tiana's heart raced for a moment, the adrenaline pumping through her body, but she forced herself to continue. And down...

_Oh, God, I'm falling. I'm falling. Oh God, oh God, oh God..._ And pull up...

"_Woooooooooo_! _Yeah_!!" A perfect paraloop. "Let's try that again! ..._Wooooooo_!"

Tiana continued gliding forward, diving and looping as she got comfortable with the movements of flying, oblivious to the various litter, bugs, and pigeons she unconsciously sent to the Void.

Slowly, she was growing closer and closer to the ground with her continual dives, though she didn't actually notice it. She zoomed forward, blissfully unaware. Though the back of her mind was a bit amazed at how suspiciously silent Reala had been through all of this.

Tiana felt so comfortable now that she decided to try one of those fast spiraling lunges that had frightened her so much before. She could almost feel the crackling energy gathering within her body--or Reala's body--as she prepared for the drill dash. Then, all at once, she let it loose, rocketing forwards and falling into that same rapid spin. Only it was different this time--she could control it. This way it was actually...fun!

The wind was curling around her as it whipped past, howling in her ears, and the world spun past in a mess of blurring colors, as if she was inside a blender. It was a wonder that she even caught the strain of Reala's voice in the midst of this chaos.

"Tee...!"

Startled, Tiana let up on the drill dash and closed her eyes to better listen. He'd just started to call her name... "Yeah? What do you want?"

"No--TREEEEEEEEE!!"

"_Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh_!!"

Tiana opened her eyes in just barely enough time to violently veer off away from the giant pine tree at the entrance to East Bellbridge Park. Desperately, she tried to regain control of her flight path, but it was too late. Before she could even right herself, she slammed full force into the side of the war veterans' monument, slipping ungracefully to the feet of the soldier statue on its stone platform.

"Oww..." Her entire front torso throbbed from the impact, along with her butt, where she'd landed. How was she going to explain all these bruises to her mother? Ah, she could just say the kids at school had beaten her up, and that's why she hadn't wanted to go. Simple solution.

She looked up to see a blue clownish face peering down at her, a scowl on its black lips. "Ah!" Tiana looked back down at her hands to see her own familiar pale hands and wrists poking out of the sleeves of her silvery jacket. "You... We stopped..."

"Boy," Reala spoke at last, turning away from her and crossing his arms. "You really are terrible at this. You couldn't even last two minutes before crashing into something and undoing our Dualization. How am I ever going to defeat the Voidables with you telling me to go fly into a tree?! Aaargh...and now I can't just go look for someone else because of the contract..."

"Well, excuse me!" Tiana snapped back, carefully lifting back to her feet and leaning against the soldier's knees. "I think it wasn't that bad, considering that that was the first time I've ever done anything like that!"

"Well, it was for me too," Reala firmly replied, though he remained facing away from her, hovering just over the statue's base. "And you didn't see me completely ignoring what was going on."

Tiana stood, confusedly beside the soldier and raised an eyebrow behind his back. "So that was the first time you've ever flown?"

"_No_!" Reala was finally ticked off enough to whip back around and yell at her face-to-face. "Of course not! I've been flying all my life! But I've never had to fly with some airheaded little kid's soul inside my body before!"

"I'm a teenager."

"Teenager, little kid, whatever. It doesn't make any difference." Reala paused to take a deep breath and calm himself. "Well, I'll just have to fight back against you whenever you want to do something stupid. That shouldn't create too much tension... You should probably get down from here before people start to notice."

Tiana frowned. That was right. Sure, no one would know what had really just happened, since she was the only one who could see Reala, but people would sure be suspicious of a teenage girl standing on the high base of the war monument and talking to herself. She slipped down to the edge of the platform and gently dropped down at its base. Her legs throbbed a little from the height, but it made no difference--she had plenty of other bruises already.

Reala lowered next to her, muttering lowly to himself again. "Explorer," he spoke out at last, moving a little bit closer.

Tiana raised an eyebrow at him again. "Now look who's acting weird."

"Explorer," Reala repeated, casually jabbing at her forehead with one sharpened fingernail.

"Hey, ow!" Great, now how was she supposed to hide _that_ one?

"That's what you're called," he finally clarified as she gingerly pressed her hands against the spot. "You're an Explorer. I just remembered it. Not that I'll be gibbering 'Explorer, Explorer!' at you every ten seconds like some other helper I know. But at least now if some Voidable comes chasing after us yelling 'hand over the Explorer!' you'll know what it's talking about."

Tiana frowned at that name as she finally pulled her hand away. "So now I'm Tiana the Explorer? Like Dora the Explorer? Why can't I just go back to being a second class archer elf?"

Reala rolled his angular eyes. "Well, I didn't name these things. If it was up to me, you'd be called a Body-Snatcher. You're the one who chose to make the contract."

Yes, Tiana admitted. That was true as well. And she was beginning to wonder if it had indeed been a mistake. She sighed a little. _I really should be getting back home. It's going to take me a while to walk back to my house from here. I didn't even pay attention to how far I was going when I was flying. Thank goodness I even know _how _to get back from here. Dad used to take me to this park a lot when I was little. I should make Reala fly me back to where we started. Ha--that's a laugh. Maybe I was...wrong..._

Hesitantly, Tiana turned her head to gaze back over at the cold jester creature, wondering what he had in store for her now. But, this time, oddly enough, he was silent, apparently lost in his own thoughts again. His eyes were closed, his head tucked down against the long blue jewel on his chest...which seemed to be strangely glowing from within.

Tiana felt extremely awkward. _Okay...what do I do now? I need to know what we're doing next. If I just leave, he'll get angry... But I don't want to interrupt him. He looks like he's meditating or something. He'd get angry. Ah...well I guess there's really no option, then. He's going to get angry either way. At least if I try to walk away, I might actually get somewhere..._

That decided, Tiana began to take a slow step backwards...but immediately froze when she noticed Reala beginning to move. His white-sleeved arms lifted up...and he began to oddly move them about in mid-air, as if he was sleep-walking, groping for some unseen object.

Tiana suddeny felt like grabbing his hands or laughing at him, as some form of revenge, but restrained herself by the sheer, unexplainable mystique of this situation. Something was going on here that she couldn't understand. Something currently beyond her.

At last, it seemed that Reala had found it. His hands curled, firmly around some sort of invisible handles, clutching them close in front of him, as if he was holding a tray...only there was nothing there.

Tiana's mind chuckled. _Oh, I get it now. You're not a jester--you're a mime!_ Oh, she was just dying to yell that at him... _If you're really a mime, then why are you so _loud_?! You're breaking the rules of your own kind, you know. How do you expect me to..._

But even these running thoughts came to another halt when Reala gently lifted one hand from the pretend object...and brushed it across the front of it. Tiana nearly jumped backwards when she heard, clear and crisp, the mellow, musical chord of a harp twang from that spot.

_A...a harp? But there's nothing there. Or maybe I just can't see it. But if I can see Reala, why can't I see the harp? And...where did it come from anyway? He just...made music out of the air. _

With his eyes still closed tightly, Reala moved to the side, tucking his invisible harp into the crook of his arm and experimentally strumming it a few more times. Tiana's thoughts also hushed as she watched him, with awe. His face was solemn again, but also...uncharacteristically peaceful. And the gentle, soothing chords of the harp were most certainly sounds she would never have thought he was capable of making. He paused in his strumming for quite a while, and it almost seemed like he was sleeping standing up.

_Wow... Oh my gosh, that was amazing. Why...? How did he...? Watching him playing the harp like that, you'd never think that he was such a cold-hearted creature. Maybe...maybe I should stick with this. Maybe it won't be that bad. Maybe there are more things...things like this that I haven't yet seen. This is only the beginning. Maybe the longer I stick with it, the more these things will be revealed to me. _

And then, all at once, Reala opened his eyes and shot into the sky, speeding like a bullet straight up into the air, leaving a dust of little yellow sparkles behind him.

"Reala?!" Tiana couldn't help but cry out. She definitely hadn't expected him to just rocket off like that without saying a word. Sure, she had wanted to get away from him just five minutes ago, but...that was before...

Incredulously, she watched as he grew smaller and smaller, soon nothing but a reddish dot against the blue sky. Then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone. Strange how she'd been with him this whole time, wishing he would go away, but when he finally _did_ go away, she found herself wishing he'd come back. Well, it _had _ended on a decidedly more positive note, anyway...

Tiana took a deep breath and turned back to the street ahead of her, packed with rush hour traffic, and the long, dull brown sidewalks. She had to start walking now or else her mother would launch an interrogation on her when she got back. Hopefully, she hadn't noticed Stella's father's car leaving. Well, at least the long walk would give her plenty of time to think up a proper explanation. _Heh. Actually, Mom would be pretty ecstatic if I told her I'd decided to stay out a little longer with my friends. As long as she didn't see the car, I can tell her that. She'd appreciate it. _

Tiana took a quick glance around to get her bearings and decide which would be the quickest route back to her house. She crossed the busy street along with a family of six coming home from an enjoyable day at the park. The mother pushed a stroller, while a little girl ran beside the father, trying to get his attention. The little boy even had a balloon in his hand.

_Oh, great. I've got all that homework I haven't started yet. I really don't want to do that logarithms worksheet... And I was supposed to write up my chemistry lab report too. Darn it. There goes my mystic blue armor. Once Mom asks me if I've done my homework yet, I won't be able to procrastinate any longer. She'll give me another one of her lectures about staying in school and pursuing a career and whatever. I don't want a career. I don't ever want to have to work at all. Why do people always talk about pursuing a career like it's a good thing? I can't see any good in it at all..._

"Mommy, Mommy!" a child's squeaky voice cried out, and Tiana suddenly realized that she was still walking beside the family from the park. "Do you hear that, Mommy?!"

"What? What do you hear, Tommy? The cars honking?"

"No, the music!"

_Music? _Tiana quelled her internal dialogue and paid attention to the world around her again. At first, all she could hear were the persistant car horns, people jabbering, and television screens blaring. But then, if she strained her ears just a little harder, she began to hear it.

"I don't hear any music, dear. Did you mean the television?"

"No, music! _Music_! It's pretty!"

It was a smooth, flowing, melodic tune...drifting softly down into her ears. Though she'd never heard this tune before, something about it just seemed to connect with her very soul...as if it was communicating something to her. And, as even the little boy could tell, it was beautiful. It was a beautiful strain of harp music.

Reala gently opened his eyes as he plucked the last, lingering notes out of the air. He gazed down over the vast expanse of his realm from the very pinnacle of the clock tower, where he balanced on one foot. The magical instrument disappeared again in the same wisp that it had come to him, but he didn't mind, since he now remembered how to summon it.

Automatically, his body naturally swept down into a bow, as he crossed both hands over his chest. And he smiled. "Good morning to you, one and all. Your guardian has fully returned."

(-)

When Tiana finally arrived back at her shabby house, the sun had just set. She carefully climbed the spiraling staircase, to be sure not to disturb the babies, and rang the square doorbell in the same hall outside her third-floor apartment.

Her mother opened it three minutes later, an unusual smile on her face. She'd since changed out of her suit into a white nightgown and slippers, her hair hanging loose and wavy once again. "Oh! Tiana! There you are!"

Tiana casually stepped into the living room, removing her jacket and heading for the hall at the end which led to her room.

"You've been out with your friends quite a while! How was it? Did you have fun?"

_Yup, just as I expected. She's overjoyed that I'm finally spending proper time with other kids my age instead of just sitting around and playing games all day. I figured. Well, she doesn't look like she's going to lecture me about it...so I may as well tell her. _

"Oh, it was incredible!" she exclaimed as she hung her jacket on the rack near the television. "I met a flying jester! And he let me fly around above the whole city in his body! Then, he played an invisible harp for everyone, and..."

Ms. Weaver sighed, loudly, resting against the arm of the sofa. "Oh, Tiana, did you even pay _attention_ to your friends? They took all this time out of their own lives just to visit with you, and you were just off in fantasy land again, talking with these flying jesters and elf warriors and whatever else. You know, it's fine to be creative and pretend these things are happening, but when you get so involved in them that you forget about other people..."

Tiana rolled her eyes. _I knew she'd say something like that. _"Nevermind. You wouldn't be able to understand, even if I tried to explain..."

"I understand perfectly well what you're doing to yourself, even if Dr. Chaine doesn't yet. And you've got to put an end to it eventually. You can't go on living your life secluded from the real world..."

"Yeah, I know," Tiana muttered, as her mother continued to prattle on behind her. She turned and trudged off down the hallway to log back onto Battle Fantasy World Online. The whole experience seemed so surreal now, after her mother had simply thumbed it down. Maybe...maybe she really had conjured it up somehow. Maybe she really was beginning to have hallucinations. Maybe Stella had been right.

She sighed as she slipped back onto her bed and picked up the wireless controller resting there. A few quick button presses flicked the PolyPack back on and the opening cut-scene began to run over again, the familiar theme song floating out from the background. _Now to make a dash for the item storage closet..._

"Oh, and you better have all your homework done, young lady! I'm coming in to check in twenty minutes!"

...Darn it.

(-)

_Bzzzrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtt..._

"Eerrrrr..." Tiana's buzzing alarm clock jolted her awoke, but she didn't feel like getting up yet. Her arm automatically swung over to silence the offending mechanism, yet she didn't even move to look at it. It didn't matter what time it was. With any luck, she'd set it wrong, and she'd slept through the first half of school. She really didn't want to go to schoool today, with Stella being mad at her. Plus, she hadn't exactly finished all of her lab report.

She'd been having such a strange dream, too. There had been a talking owl in a waistcoat, one of his wings in a sling. He'd seemed almost afraid of her somehow, like he didn't understand what she was. He'd said something like, "This one never gets up. No...no, she's been marked somehow and she can't be a Visitor. She'll never be a Visitor..."

"I'll never be a...visitor?" she mumbled to herself. _Why would I never be a visitor? If I went and visited somebody..._

"Of course you won't," a deep voice spoke up, very nearby. "You're an Explorer."

_What the...?! That sounded like... _Tiana carefully turned over and opened her eyes at last...to see a pale blue face and angular aqua eyes staring back at her.

"Welcome back."

"..._Eeeeeyaaaaaaaaaaaa_!!"

Tiana shot out of bed, nearly smacking her head against his. He'd been leaning over her at her bedside, waiting for her to wake up. In a flurry of panic, she backed against the closet behind her bed, staring in wide-eyed terror. Reala just followed her progress, looking annoyed.

Tiana's heart raced. _What the?! I thought he'd been just a figment of my imagination! I thought he was _gone_ now! _"W-W-What are you doing here?!"

"I'm the guardian of the Waking World, remember?" Reala explained, as if it should be completely obvious. "And you made a contract with me. You're my Explorer now. That means I have to spend every Waking moment of every Waking day by your side, until you have all five ideya."

"W-What?! No! You can't stay with me! I never agreed to that!"

"You decided to make the contract and accept all of its consequences, did you not?"

"Well, you never told me about _this_!"

"It doesn't matter if I told it to you or not, you agreed to it." Reala plunked himself down on the end of her bed, crossing his legs, comfortably. "And I'm not exactly pleased with you running off on me while I was making my announcement."

"How was I supposed to know?!" Tiana had peeled herself away from the closet by now, filled with the burning desire to argue back. "You just went into your little harp-playing trance and didn't tell me anything!"

"It's not a harp, it's a lyre," Reala clarified. "There's a big difference, you know."

"Well, it's invisible! It could be anything!"

Reala just cocked his head and smirked a little at her. Oh God. This was impossible. How was she ever going to get through the rest of the _day_ with this creature, much less the entire quest to defeat the Voidables? Going to school really didn't seem so bad anymore.

Reala turned away to gaze out her bedroom window, though his little smirk didn't fade. He was thinking again, secretly, perhaps trying to access his memories. He closed his eyes, for just a moment.

"...And thus, the quest begins again."


	3. The Trial

New and improved summary. I just didn't like the wording of the old one. And I always underestimate how much space I have.

Meh...I had originally intended for this to be only the beginning to what I'm writing in the next chapter, but...it got too long. Now it's its own separate chapter. I don't really like it as much as the others, but I'm not sure why. Maybe the switching. The first chapter was mostly from Reala's perspective and the second was mostly from Tiana's, but from now on, I'm going to be switching back and forth between them like this.

I'll explain the whole "why Reala has to eat and sleep" thing later, so just...go with it.

There's some sort-of nudity in this chpater. Sort of. And yes! Although this fic is based on JoD, I will be incorporating elements from the original game! Even though I haven't gotten a chance to play it yet... I WILL play it eventually!

A Great Big Thanks goes out to Shadow of Phantasia/SilentAngel98xo for the AWESOME fanart of Reala and Tiana from chapter 2! I LOVE IT! I always LOVE to see any kind of fanart for my fics, if anyone else wants to do some (nudge, nudge). It's excellent motivation, and that was actually the only reason I got this chapter finished so quickly... I'm going to try to get my own cruddy little doodles up on DA sometime soon, though.

You know the drill. Reala, NiGHTS, and anyone else belong to Sonic Team. I own Tiana and co. Oh, and the Voidables, too!

Next chapter will probably be pretty short (by my standards). But help is on its way!

(-)

Chapter 3: The Trial

"Tia-_na_?!" What's going on in there?!"

Tiana automatically threw her bedcovers over Reala, as if to hide him, but he didn't move an inch.

"You know, I'm invisible to everyone but you. Doing this is only going to make me show up _more_."

"Augh! That's right!" Tiana had another spaz attack and ripped the covers off him, rapidly trying to arrange them correctly again.

Reala just groaned and muttered something about her "so-called Ideya of Intelligence" again.

Ms. Weaver appeared in the doorway a minute later, her hair pushed back in another bun, and wearing a simple aqua shirt and black slacks. "My Lord, what was all that screaming about?"

"A-ah!" Tiana jerked back around at the sound of her mother's voice, trying to calm down her panic. She gave a furtive glance to the unconcerned Reala, and then focused back on her mother. "Uh...n-nothing, Mom. Just a spider. It was in my bed, and I screamed when I saw it, but it's dead now."

"Oh. Well make sure you clean up the remains. We can't have those things here, making the house even more disgusting. I've left the table set for breakfast, so don't skip out on it. And _don't miss that bus_! If I hear any more reports about you skipping class, I'm going to have to sell that video game of yours."

"Y-Y-Yes, Mom."

"Okay, I'm off then. Have a good day, honey."

"Yes, Mom."

Tiana watched, with bated breath, as her mother rushed off down the hallway into the kitchen on the side, grabbed her lunch box and coat, and was out the door. She sighed in relief and turned to look back at Reala. He'd now crossed his arms as well and was silently examining her room. _Well...I guess I ought to get going. Reala or no Reala, I need to go to school today. _

She got out of bed and padded on her fluffy green slippers down the hall into the kitchen. Indeed, a few plates were set out on the table, along with forks and knives. In her morning rush, her mother sometimes forgot that her father didn't live here anymore and automatically set an extra place at the table. Tiana frowned when she stepped into the room and noticed that Reala was hovering behind her, following her. _Does he have to follow me _everywhere_?!_

"Well, I suppose I should have some breakfast." She turned back to look at him. "Uh...what do you eat, anyway?"

"Babies," he replied, flatly, as he touched back down to the floor. "I like them thick and juicy."

Tiana's face twisted, disgustedly. She stared back at him, eyebrows buried in her head, and her entire face paling, as if she was about to throw up.

"...That was a joke."

Tiana scowled and whirled away from him. "For a flying jester, you really aren't funny."

"I'm not supposed to be."

"Well, then, don't say stuff like that!"

"That was just too good of an opportunity to pass up."

"Argh, just forget it!" Tiana stormed up to the olive-colored refrigerator and pulled out the carton of eggs. "I'm just going to have some eggs. If you want to starve to death, that's fine with me--I don't have to feed you."

"Then I'll have some of those," Reala replied, moving closer to the table. "It's been so long since I've had real food that it doesn't mater."

Tiana busily set out the frying pan, started the stove, and began selecting the eggs, as Reala picked up one of the plates on the table, examining it as if he'd never seen one before. "Don't touch that!" she called over the sizzling of the eggs, which were now beginning to fry in the pan, and he was terribly tempted to smash it against the table just to anger her. Thankfully, the eggs were done before he could start destroying things.

Tiana slipped them onto the plates and reached into the fridge again for some orange juice. As she poured some for herself and began to slip down into her seat at the table, she noticed something. Her heart froze for a second. Reala wasn't sitting down...but he was now examining the silverware, and clutching the shiny, edged butter knife in his claw-like hand.

_Bad idea...bad, bad idea... Oh, God... Why didn't I think to take that away before he got a hold of it?! And he was holding the plate! I should have realized that..._ The more she thought about it, the more her eyes widened...and the more she thought that she should probably start running.

Reala brought the knife back...and stabbed it down, straight through the center of his egg. Then, he brought it back up, the egg sticking up on the end of the knife as if it had been speared, and shoved the whole thing in his mouth.

_Is _that _how he eats?_ Tiana was just about to gripe about his lack of table manners, but remembered that he was still holding the knife.

Strangely enough, his head then pressed itself down into his collar and stuck there for a moment. It simply floated back up again afterwards.

_Well, I wondering how he was going to eat anything when he has no neck to swallow it. But...he'd have to grow a temporary one or something... What, did the bottom of his head just open up and attach itself to some opening on his shoulders, or...? _Tiana was so confused and disgusted that she suddenly felt a bit queasy. She was aware of her own neck in strange and disturbing ways, so much that if she'd felt something slide down it at that moment, she probably would've screamed.

Reala opened his eyes again, gazing casually back at her as if this was something that happened every day. "Is that all? That was fast."

"You want another one?!" Tiana replied. "I don't have time to be cooking any more!"

Reala scowled. "I wouldn't even call that a snack. The last meal I had lasted ten times longer."

"Well, I didn't expect you to swallow it whole like that! You're supposed to cut it up and eat it in little pieces!"

"That _was_ a little piece."

Tiana sighed as her head dropped down to her own egg on the plate below her. The awkward, queasy sensation in her neck still wouldn't allow her to eat it, and even just thinking about swallowing it was making her feel worse. "Fine," she conceded, pushing the plate across the table. "You can have mine. I don't feel well anymore... And you look like you could use it, anyway--you're, like, impossibly scrawny."

Reala didn't think twice about spearing her egg and stuffing it into his mouth in the same manner, though he gave her an awful, menacing glare in the process which seemed to say "Mention that one more time, and your hand will be next."

Tiana quickly slipped out of her chair and scuffled back down the hallway, so she wouldn't have to see him do that freaky "swallowing" thing again. _Note to self: Whatever you do, _don't _try to tease him about being scrawny again. Especially when there are sharp objects close by. _Tiana sighed as she stepped back into her room to start picking out her clothes. Was she going to get _any _peace and quiet today?

(-)

"That looks especially tacky on you."

Tiana was wearing her bright green mini-dress with the buttons on the front, a pair of blue leggings, and her dark blue flats with the stars on the side. She huffily turned away from her desk, where she'd been gathering up her notebooks, to frown back at Reala, who was currently floating in front of her bed. "Well excuse me, Mr. Pink Frilly Collar."

"This is a ruff," Reala coldly explained, tugging at the scrunched fabric around his nonexistent neck. "People of royalty used to wear these. So it suits me just fine. But that dress makes you look like a bubble-headed idiot."

"Rrrgh..." Tiana snatched her final notebook from the pile of papers swamping her desk and hurriedly stuffed them into her shoulder bag. Argue, argue, argue. Were they ever going to stop arguing? She'd barely been able to get a free moment to brush her teeth and go to the bathroom. Reala was obviously putting all of his efforts into getting back at her for the "scrawny" comment.

"Well," she finally spoke up, as she stood back up and moved towards her closet to fetch her jacket. "At least I'll finally be able to get away from you now."

"No, you can't," Reala argued back. "I'm your guide to the Waking World. You can't escape from me unless you go to sleep."

"I escaped from you when you were doing your harp-playing thingy, didn't I?"

"Lyre," he reminded her. "And that was only because I was distracted."

"Well, I don't care!" Tiana finally burst out, frustration tugging at the edges of her eyes. She slammed her closet door closed and clutched her jacket, tightly. "I don't care about this stupid contract thing--you're _not_ coming to school with me! After what you made me do to my friends, there's no way I'm letting you float around me all day and wreck whatever's left of my life! If I'd never met you, I wouldn't even have these problems right now!"

Reala fell silent, but not out of shock or anger. He seated himself on her bed again and looked back out her window, as if considering something. "Fine then," he at last consented, his voice steady and calm. "I won't follow you. But you're going to regret it."

Instantly, Tiana felt the tension float off of her, and she couldn't help but break into a smile, pulling on her jacket in glee. "As if that would ever happen!"

For once, Reala didn't have a snappy retort, and just continued staring into the distance, arms crossed. Good. He'd gone into one of his moody, deep thinking trances again, and probably hadn't even heard her. She liked it when he was like this.

"Okay, I'm off then! I can't miss the bus this time!" Tiana pulled her bag over her head and nearly skipped out of her bedroom door. Her problems with Stella and Lily didn't even matter so much now--just the prospect of a quiet day at school was incredibly refreshing to her. And as she traveled through the parlor and out of her apartment, locking the door behind her, Reala didn't even turn to look at her.

(-)

"Rrrrrgh..." Tiana was thankful that she had one of the furthest seats in her science classroom. It was that time just before lunch period when she always got really drowsy. This had to be one of the worst school days she'd been through thus far. Her math teacher had given her a dirty look when she didn't have a worksheet to hand him, Stella had refused to even look at her all day, she'd just gotten her Spanish quiz back with a big fat twenty-five written over it, and to top it all off, her stomach was throbbing from having skipped breakfast.

_Stupid Reala..._ she fumed. _Well, okay, the worksheet and the quiz weren't his fault, but..._ She imagined his clownish face sneering at her about her "Ideya of Intelligence" again and groaned. _Why did I decide to stay his partner again? I'm supposed to be helping him save the world from the Voidables. What _are _the Voidables, anyway? I haven't seen one yet. Pssh, I bet he made that whole thing up... What the?!_

Tiana leaped back into an upright position in her seat when she felt something tapping against her shoulder. She whipped around to see Lily in the seat diagonally in back of her, handing her a folded piece of paper, her round face bright. Tiana snatched it up before the teacher could see and began to discreetly unfold it between the pages of her open textbook. _Great. Probably more bad news. Is she mad at me too now? Have they decided to break off the friendship? _

"Its okay T," Lily's note read, in her squashy bubble letters. "S never stays mad at people for long. I'm sure by the end of the week she'll forgotten all about it. I'm certinly not mad. You can allways talk to me!" This was followed by a doodle of two smiley faces next to each other and the letters "BFF".

Lily obviously wasn't the best speller, but the kind message sent a flood of relief through Tiana's heart. She quickly snatched up a pencil, wrote "thank you!" in big, bold letters on the back, and slid it across the floor to the legs of her desk.

Lily bent down, pretending to pick up a pen she had dropped, and crumpled the paper into her hand.

Tiana looked over her shoulder and smiled. Well...maybe this day wouldn't be _so_ bad...

(-)

He had moved himself to the roof, where he'd hoped he could get more fresh air. Fat chance of that. The heavy smog from the neighbors' chimneys had such an awful stench that it stung the ends of his sensors. He was surprised that they hadn't come swarming out of it already. Well, maybe this was only what was left over from a previous visit. Reala could see them clearly now--a whole swarm of them was currently attacking a skyscraper to the west--but he already knew that he was useless against them on his own. This was so frustrating.

Unfortunately, that little outburst this morning had sparked another small memory, and it had been bothering him ever since. He saw NiGHTS in his mind's eye, wagging a finger at him and putting on a lecturing tone. "Now, Ree, you can't go picking on people all the time like that. It's no wonder you haven't gotten any Explorers."

_Well, it's not entirely my fault_, he argued back, clenching his teeth. _You're taking so many of them to become Dreamers, that no one wants to Explore anymore! I can't help it if they're all afraid of me now. _

Reala lied back on the roof for a moment, quietly fuming, before his thoughts turned back to Tiana. Her attitude had seemed very promising in the beginning, but now, she was only proving herself to be just another normal girl. She was so easily flustered and upset, and excited by little things like flying. He knew that an Explorer, like a Dreamer, was more than just a human puppet. The Dualizer had to form a special connection with that person for any actual progress to be made...and right now, he didn't feel any kind of connection with Tiana at all. Perhaps he'd been too hasty...

A loud, echoing bong suddenly stirred Reala out of his thoughts, and he leaped up to his feet on top of the roof. Twelve o' clock... He really had to get going now. It might be too late already.

Without a second thought, he kicked off from the roof and smoothly broke into flight. He pushed himself into a brief drill dash a moment after, hurriedly spiraling off in the direction of East Bridgeside High School.

(-)

Tiana yawned as she stuffed her science book back into her shoulder bag. At least she didn't have the weight of her lab report notebook anymore, since she'd just handed that in. _Ugh...I'm probably going to get another C on that... _She hadn't exactly finished her two graphs, and the conclusion was just a hastily scrawled sentence saying something like "and so, it didn't work." What else _was _there to say, anyway? The experiment hadn't worked.

The bell finally rang, and she scurried out of the classroom, crumpling up her worksheet in the process. She began to toss it into the wastebasket in the hall outside...but she suddenly felt an odd sticky sensation envelop her hand.

_What the...?! _Tiana's hand automatically leaped back as soon as she turned to look at it. The wastebasket was covered in some kind of black goo, which oozed out of the central hole into which she'd just thrown her paper. _Eww...someone put tar all over the trash bucket? Why would anyone do _that_?! That's disgusting..._

But, then, just as she was about to turn away again, the tar strangely began to move. Her eyes widened, her body freezing in shock. Wispy, smoky edges were forming at the end of the blackness, as it began to transform. It was now more of a gas, a smoky mass of some sort of black substance, hovering just above the trash can. And it was morphing...it was forming into some kind of shape.

At last, a small, round, solid leaf appeared in the middle of the gasses, the exact same black hue as the substance of which it was composed. Tentatively, Tiana reached out to touch it...and immediately pulled her hand back again. The edge was razor-sharp.

"Hi Tiana!" a bright voice called, and she whipped around to see Lily standing beside her in the doorway to the classroom. "Are you ready to go to lunch?"

Tiana couldn't help but stare at her as if she was the alien. She glanced back over at the hovering black leaf, then turned back to her. She hadn't noticed it at all.

Lily frowned. "What's the matter? You look kinda freaked out about something."

Great. First Reala, and now this thing? It was such a burden, being able to see things that everyone else couldn't. "Er...it's nothing!" Tiana forced a smile. "I was just...worrying about my lab report. I really need to get better grades on my reports..."

"Yeah, me too!" Lily agreed. "And I had a really hard time with that one because nothing happened in my group. It was boring..."

Tiana willingly followed as Lily began to walk off towards the doorway at the end of the hall...but she just had to double-check. Yes, that leaf was still there, and it even seemed to have just grown...eyes? Two round, glowing, white balls had appeared in the middle of it...following her. Another one of those awful shivers of fear ran down her spine. Oh, God, not again...

"Hey...what are you staring at that wastebasket for?"

"I-It's nothing! Nothing!" Tiana immediately whirled back around. "I'm just spacing out! C'mon, let's go get lunch. I'm starved!" But even as she turned her back and began the long trek down to the cafeteria, she couldn't get that frightful image out of her mind.

(-)

"Eeehhhhhhhh... Eeeeerrrrrrrgh... Waaaaaa..."

"Are you okay?"

"I-I'm fine! I told you, I'm fine! Ah! Ugh...oh, ewwwww..."

Lily raised an eyebrow at her obviously uncomfortable friend. Something wasn't right here. Was she doing one of those weird hallucination things again? She worried whether it was truly okay...

Tiana could barely hold her position in the lunch line. Her whole body shuddered just looking at it. Oh my God...when had this happened?!

More wispy black leaves emerged from students' backpacks, black lizards crawled across their feet, heaps of muddy black goop covered their lunch trays, drops of wispy blackness fell from the ceiling, and chilling, tiny, childlike figures of darkness leaned against the walls and clung to the ends of people's pants. And everyone was completely oblivious!

She watched as the lizards nestled into their boots. They shoveled the goop into their mouths and exclaimed, "This is delicious!" The childlike creatures scraped their bony fingers across their necks, but they just scratched the spot, absently, as if it was only an itch. And she couldn't do anything about it!

She looked back at Lily and saw a halo of filmy blackness covering her hair, as miniature smoky black mountains dangled from her ears, over her earrings.

"Do you need to see the nurse?"

"Errr...no, no. Don't worry about me..." _You should be more worried about yourself! _

The line moved forward a little, and Tiana suddenly felt a light tugging on the end of her dress. Looking down, she noticed one of the child-creatures, yanking it and staring up at her with its blazing white eyes.

"Aaaah!" She swung her leg out, as if to kick it out of the way, but it only dissolved into its black, gaseous material again as her foot went through it.

"What was that?!"

"Uh, uh, sorry! There was a bug on me!"

Tiana cringed. The thing wasn't going away. It let go of her dress, but now, it was staring up at her even more intensely, its eyes glowing even brighter. Oh, no. This wasn't good.

Another one was approaching her now. It started grabbing at her leggings.

"Eeeyuh!" Once again, kicking it didn't work. And a third appeared. The line moved forward again...but they followed.

"No..." All of the creatures were slowly abandoning their hosts now, making their way down from their shoulders or their ankles. The lizards changed their course and started scampering now in her direction. "No...oh no...no, no, no..."

"What are you so scared of?" Lily asked, and the film over her head began to stretch itself out, towards her face.

Tiana quickly backed away. "Uhh...um...I...don't know. What...what _is_ it?!" She was almost to the lunch counter now. If only she could get through this...

The creatures followed her every step of the way. The goop on the students' plates began to hover up into the air. It hesitated for a moment...before one hovering glob suddenly rocketed towards her.

"Aaaugh!" She just barely dodged it. And then, the rest began to follow. "No! No, stop it!" she yelled as she writhed away from the flying blobs of goo. The creatures began to drag at her ankles, trying to pull her down. One blob sailed past, missing her ear by a mere centimeter.

"Tiana!" Lily cried in concern, trying to approach her again. The other students in the cafeteria were turning to stare at her now. They had finally reached the lunch counter.

"N-No, no, go away!" she cried, as one of the creatures started to yank on her hair. "Why...?! Why are you...?!"

"Do you want your lunch or not, young lady?"

Tiana looked up to see the lunch lady holding a tray of chicken out to her...with a gigantic, black, wispy bird perched on top. It spread its wings, darkness seeping off of them like ink stains, raised its sharp, pointy beak, and let out a terrible, high-pitched, wailing cry of attack.

"_Aaaaaaaugh_!"

Something clamped itself over her shoulder, sharp talons digging into her skin, and roughly yanked her away from the menacing bird.

"Tiana, what's going on?!" Lily cried in alarm.

But even Tiana didn't know what was going on. She could only continue to scream, as something dragged her across the floor of the cafeteria, through the hoards of creatures, and straight out the double doors, into the hallway. The burning eyes of the entire school were on her the whole time, and even the staff on duty couldn't help but stare.

At last, with a resounding crash, she slammed against the lockers further down the hall and ripped away from whatever it was that had gotten a hold of her.

"..._Reala_?!"

The very same red-and-black jester floated in front of her, glancing warily back down the hall, his teeth grinding together.

Tiana yanked herself away from the locker, infuriated. "What are you doing here?! I told you not to follow me!"

"Why, you're welcome for coming to save you," he sarcastically replied, turning back towards her. "I know how much you appreciate it."

"You call this saving me? Grabbing me like that and slamming me into a locker?! You could have at least warned me or something! And there was absolutely no need to..."

Reala zoomed forward agian, seizing her arm and dragging her off, further down the hall. "Shut up, you brat, they're coming!"

"Aaah!" Tiana cringed against the pain in her arm, closing her eyes and trying to wish it all away. The day had just been getting better...why did this have to happen?!

Reala finally let up and released her arm once they were far enough away, though he still kept glancing over his shoulder.

"What _are _those things, anyway?" Tiana asked, as she leaned back against a radiator in the side of the wall.

"Voidables!" Reala cried in exasperation. "Haven't I told you about them several times already?! Or did you just think I was making it all up?!"

Tiana scowled. Darn... How was he able to read her mind like that?

"And you had to be stupid enough to retaliate on them. If you'd just ignored them, they would've figured you were just another normal person, but once you tried swiping at one, they knew you could see them. Now they know you're an Explorer, and they'll be out to get you!"

"What?!" Tiana cried. "Why did you just let me go off to school without telling me about this?! Why didn't you come with me and tell me what was going on?!"

"I _tried _to," Reala replied. "But you wouldn't let me."

Tiana crossed her arms. Great. He was never going to let her live this down now.

He smirked a little at her. "I told you, you'd regret it."

Just then, a pool of shadowy water began to seep out from underneath the bathroom doors across the hall, making its way towards them. Gradually, it was forming itself into some kind of pipe.

"The Voidables!" Tiana called, alerting Reala to its presence. "They got here already?!"

"Well, they're not just in your cafeteria," Reala coldly explained. "They're everywhere. You've just never been able to see them before."

"B-But-but...how are we supposed to defeat them? I couldn't even hurt them..." Tiana's eyes remained fixed on the pipe-Voidable, now solid in front of them, and worriedly, she thought she noticed another splotch of black approaching in her peripheral vision. "You said that we're supposed to save the world from them..."

Reala let out his breath. "And what did you think we spent all that time practicinig flying for? Fun?!"

At last, that's when Tiana's panicked mind remembered. She knew what she needed to do now. "Oh! Dualization!" And with that, she desperately leaped forward, seizing Reala's hands.

The process took a little less time now, since they had already done it once before, and Tiana soon found herself in the awkward position of hovering above her school floor, surrounded by a black cloud of oncoming Voidables.

The pipe instantly launched itself at her, but this time, when she attempted to kick it, her red boot actually connected. "Yes!" she cried, as the Voidable flew backwards, smacking into the wall between the bathroom doors. "How about that?! You can't escape from me now!"

"You can't just fly around, whacking them," Reala's voice complained as he yanked her forward into a glide. "That's not going to do anything but stun them."

Tiana gasped when she noticed that they were shooting straight into the center of the crowd from the cafeteria. _What is he _doing_?! Don't go _towards _them! They're going to kill me!!_

"They're not going to _kill _you!" Reala snapped in annoyance as one of the small human figures leaped up at him, and he flipped out of the way. "The Voidables only want your soul--your ability to produce ideya."

_Isn't that the same as killing me?!_

"Well...yes, in a way."

Tiana could only suck in her breath and watch in terror as she was yanked backwards and forwards through the air, just out of the Voidables' grasps. At one point, she felt her head bump against the ceiling.

"Darn buildings," Reala grumbled. "There's not enough space to maneuvar."

Two human-shape Voidables, which had just launched themselves at them, missed and smashed into each other. They fell back down against the floor, limp and unconscious.

"Now!" Reala called, beginning to nudge her down in their direction. "Paraloop them!"

_Paraloop?! _Tiana was suddenly struck with panic, frantically trying to recall what that meant. _Paraloop...paraloop? _

"Yes, _paraloop_, you idiot!" Reala snapped. "Don't you remember anything?! It won't work if I just do it myself!"

That feeling flashed through her mind again--the wind rushing past, her body flipping over and around in mid-air...

"Ah!" Tiana gasped with the realization. She aimed herself towards the floor and pushed herself into flight. Instantly, she felt herself speeding up, since Reala was pushing with her. They zoomed towards the ground, but just as soon as they reached the two Voidables, Tiana veered off to the right...and back around. Smoothly, they circled both of them, and a reddish-black hole blinked into existence, sucking them in, and disappearing again.

"Yeah!" Tiana called in triumph. "Paraloop!" A very odd tickling sensation faded in over her chest, and for a moment, she felt like bursting into laughter.

"Ah, the horizontal paraloop," Reala spoke up, his voice much calmer. "That's my specialty."

"Let's get the rest of them!" Tiana turned back around to the hoard of remaining Voidables, and Reala willingly followed. They dove in between them, dodging the human's hands, the lizard's snapping mouths, and the sharp edges of the leaves, weaving a series of circles through the hallway and catching them within the resulting black holes. The crowd was rapidly thinning out now. Tiana smiled. _Wow--this is actually kind of fun! _

A bit of the black goop got stuck onto them, but they flung themselves into a quick drill dash, shaking it off. Another quick paraloop finished off the last of the Voidable goo.

But just when Tiana was beginning to think they were almost to the end of it, that terrible, screeching, wailing cry shot out again, very close by. "Oh no--the bird!"

Indeed, the giant bird Voidable from the cafeteria had at last arrived, streaking its inky black wings through the air.

Reala gritted his teeth at the sight of it. "That one's so big...it must be a second-level Voidable, like the Nightmaren. There's some other way of defeating it, since we can't paraloop it."

_"Like the Nightmaren"? _Tiana was a bit confused by that statement. He'd never said anything about nightmares before. And why was it "Nightmaren", with an "N" on the end like that?

"It's nothing!" Reala growled, sweeping the thought aside as he nudged her to move forward. "Just forget I said that! We have more pressing problems right now."

"Aaah!" Tiana gasped as the bird snapped at them with its sharp beak, and Reala just barely yanked her out of the way.

"Look for a weak point!" he commanded. "There's got to be one somewhere--perhaps near its beak or its wings!"

"I'm not going anywhere _near_ its beak!" Tiana cried, but an instant later, the beak was coming back for her.

Her eyes widened. There was some kind of strange spot, right in the middle of the bird's neck which glowed bright red against its body's deep darkness. "There!" she realized. "On its neck! That's got to be the weak point, right?"

Reala again maneuvared them out of the way of its stabbing point, trying to get a look from a different angle. "Okay," he began to explain, his voice hard and serious. "Pay attention. The next time that thing charges at us, we're going to do a drill dash, right below its beak and into that spot. But you've got to aim carefully, and don't get too carried away. Are you ready?"

Tiana's breath caught. "U-Uh...not really."

"Well too bad!"

The Voidable gave another shriek and flew straight at them again. Tiana felt a horrible burning as Reala pulled on her with all of his strength. Then, at last, she gave in, and fell into a desperate, spiraling dive, falling down towards the center of the menacing creature.

Down...down...and up! They both pulled up at the exact same time, smashing straight into the red splotch with their combined strength.

It shrieked again, its head flailing up into the air in agony and smashing against the ceiling. Then, it simply burst, its wispy black substance curling and puffing back out of existence, like flames being extinguished. The remaining minion Voidables did the same.

Shaking a little, Tiana felt herself lowering gently back towards the floor, her hands on her hips. "Th-They're all gone now... Those other ones just...disappeared..."

"That one was their leader," Reala explained. "Once their leader is gone, the whole troop disappears. That's why it's important to always make sure the leader is sufficiently guarded, otherwise the...nevermind." He trailed off once he began to sense the confusion from Tiana again.

The two touched back down to the cool floor of the hallway, and Tiana couldn't help but rejoice. "Hey, we did it! We killed all of them! Yes!!"

"Indeed, we have," Reala agreed. "Now get out."

"Ow!" Tiana suddenly fell back onto her butt as Reala un-Dualized her. "Jeez, what now?! Can't I ever catch a break?!"

"You were beginning to annoy me," Reala informed her. "Thank God that's over now."

Tiana sighed and got back to her feet. "Well, we got rid of the Voidables here, you can go back home or wherever you were before. I still have two more classes, after lunch, and I'm not going to put up with you for another two hours."

Reala shrugged. "Fine with me. I didn't particularly want to anyway."

Tiana opened her mouth to retaliate...but a loud ringing noise interrupted her. She scowled. Great. Lunch period was over. She'd used up all her time fighting those stupid creatures. Her stomach growled, loudly.

She glared back up at Reala, who was still hovering in front of her. "You owe me breakfast _and_ lunch now! I had to skip my lunch so I could help you with those stupid Voidable things! If I pass out from starvation, it'll be all your fault!"

"I fail to see how that's _my _fault," Reala replied, raising his eye socket. "I would say it was the Voidables' fault. After all, they're the ones that attacked you, and I had to..."

But by now, Tiana had already stormed off halfway down the hall, unable to listen to it any longer.

Reala only crossed his arms and gave off a "hmph" before flying off through the door at the other end of the hall.

(-)

When Tiana finally dragged herself up the stairs to her apartment and unlocked the door, she just wanted to collapse into the nearest soft object. The rest of her school day had been even worse. Everyone wouldn't stop staring at her, questioning her about her outburst in the cafeteria, and suggesting that she go to a nurse or a counselor. Even her teachers wouldn't leave her alone, murmuring things like, "You can always talk to us," and "If you need any help, don't be afraid to just ask." She'd wanted to just scream "There's nothing wrong with me!!" but she'd never be able to explain.

She just groaned and made her way into the kitchen, thankful that she could finally get herself something to eat. She felt ready to throw up with the hunger pangs.

As soon as she entered the kitchen and dropped her bag on the floor, she noticed it, and her eyes widened in awe. Sitting on the kitchen table was a large bowl full of various fruits and vegetables, in a kind of salad. Sauces, utensils, and napkins were set out on the table around it, along with two cookies on a plate, presumably for dessert.

_How...? What...? Mom doesn't get back from work until six-thirty. It couldn't have been her. The neighbors can't get into our apartment... There's only one person who could have done this..._ Tiana was completely stunned. It couldn't be... Did Reala really do this for her?

She stepped up closer to the table in wonderment...and wrinkled her nose. "Ick...some of this lettuce is kind of...bad." She turned one of the apples over. "Ew, and so is the fruit!" Upon closer examination, almost everything in the salad concoction turned out to be half-rotted.

Tiana groaned. _Oh, well. I guess it's the thought that counts...sort of...not really. Maybe he was trying to poison me..._

At least the cookies looked fresh, so she just ate those while she got out the ingredients for sandwiches and dumped the monstrous salad into their big kitchen trash bucket.

After the sandwiches were made, she decided to take them into her room so she could relax and eat them while playing some Battle Fantasy World or rereading some of her favorite comic book series. After a day like today, she definitely needed it. She smiled as she made her way down the hall to her room, carrying her plate and cup of orange soda. At last, some peace and quiet! She opened her cream-colored door at the end of the hall...and froze.

There was Reala, comfortably reclining on her bed and casually flipping through the pages of one of her notebooks as if it was some kind of magazine. He glanced over when he heard her enter, but went straight back to reading as if it was nothing at all.

That was it. This was the final straw. She just couldn't take this anymore.

"..._Aaaaaaaaaaugh_!!" Tiana screamed, shoving her lunch onto her desk and lunging at Reala, tearing the notebook out of his hands. He stared back at her as if she'd just gone insane. "_What are you doing_?!" she screamed out again, shoving the notebook into her desk drawer. "These are my _private_ things!!"

At last, Reala understood, and cocked his floating head at her. "Well, I wouldn't think so, the way you have them lying all out in the open like this."

"_It doesn't matter_!!" Tiana shrieked. "It belongs to me, and you can't just do whatever you want with it!! Don't you lay a finger on it ever again!!"

Reala sat up and rolled his eyes. "It doesn't matter--I've finished reading all of them by now anyway."

Tiana was going to explode. Her face turned completely red for the first time in her life. She'd never felt so angry and embarrassed and so completely frustrated over anything like this before.

"Look, I wasn't trying to snoop into your secret little teenager diaries," Reala spoke up again, when he noticed her rapidly reddening face. "I was just bored and looking for something to read, and these happened to be conveniently lying out for me. I could care less if you..." He picked up one of the papers on the bed next to him, with her drawings all over it. "...have some kind of fetish for black-haired guys in armor."

"_Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaagh_!!" Tiana screamed again. She seized Reala's arm so suddenly and so forcefully that he actually went flying off the bed, barely managing to twist around and float back up before he hit the floor. "_Get out_!" she shrieked at him. "Get out, get out, get out!!" She backed him out the door, fuming and trembling with anger.

Reala suddenly grinned when he noticed an odd connection. "You know, _I _used to wear armor."

"_Get out_!" Tiana slammed the door in his face, the awful crashing noise shuddering through the entire building. Her hands yanked the security lock into place. Why hadn't she thought of that before?

On the other side, Reala stared into the cream-colored paint for a few more seconds in silence before his chuckles began to bubble out of him. _Well_, he thought, she's _got a lot of spirit, shoving the former general of Nightmare out of her room. She's certainly not going to let anyone push _her _around..._ Hmm... Now the only problem was that he'd have to find something else to do...

(-)

And so, he'd decided to take a bath. Reala couldn't remember the last time he'd had a good bath. There was never any water in Nightmare, and hardly any privacy either, with all those minion Nightmaren running around. Though once, he'd gotten a few minutes to wash his arms while some little boy was having a nightmare about drowning. Unfortunately, water-themed nightmares never seemed to last very long. And he'd never been able to wash his face, for fear of getting his mask wet. Now, he had an entire bathroom accessible to him, complete with soap and faucets. Why not take this opportunity to finally get in a good bath?

Reala gently closed the bathroom door behind him and turned the faucets, leaving the bathtub to fill up while he removed his clothes. He kicked off his boots, shrugged off his jacket and collar, and undid his belt, slipping his pants off into the pile with the rest of the outfit. He had to wait until the bath was ready before going any further. But then, he slowly began to unwind the black wrappings covering his stomach and chest.

It felt so strange all of a sudden...he couldn't ever recall being completely naked before at any time in his life, and he felt almost nervous about it. He just felt so...exposed...like anything could come along and knock him down now. He had no more protection.

_What are all these bandages for? _Reala's hands shook a little as his body began to slowly emerge underneath them. As the wrapping began to fall away over his chest, he had to carefully detach his crystal for a moment, holding it tightly in one hand, to unwind the bandages underneath it. He had a terrible sense that there was a reason for this...that the bandages were hiding something. And he didn't know what. There was some part of his body that he'd never seen before, even though it had been there all his life, and that thought was disturbing him. What could possibly be undeneath all these black wrappings?

At last, he reached the end of the string, and it fell away from his collar, leaving him completely and utterly bare. His hand clenched, securely, around his crystal, still detached from his chest, as if for bearing. And finally...he turned around and looked into the mirror above the sink.

The blueness of his own skin at first startled him. It looked especially odd now, since there was nothing to cover it up. His entire body was this strange, pale blue color. But then, of course, there was his chest.

Reala couldn't help but stare, breathlessly, at the sight. He'd been expecting some sort of scar or deformity, the way it had been wrapped up like some sort of wound...but he'd certainly never have guessed these... What _were _they anyway? Tattoos? He should've been able to remember getting a tattoo. And as far as he knew, there wasn't anyone in the entire Dreaming World who could even _do _tattooing. So then how...?

Gently, Reala reached up with one finger and touched one. He shivered at the sensation of anything touching against his bare skin, but he didn't feel any kind of edge to it. They were just...patches of color.

Three colored diamond shapes ran in a line from the center of his chest all the way down to the bottom of his stomach, each getting a bit smaller further down. The largest one on top was blue, the next one purple, and the smallest one red. Yet they seemed to just be...part of his skin somehow. It wasn't paint, or cloth, or even a tattoo. They had...always been there.

Reala looked back to the blue crystal in his hand that kept him alive...and slowly brought it back up to his chest again. As usual, the crystal quivered and shot out of his hand, pressing itself firmly against his chest. It felt odd without the wrappings underneath it...but what was most mysterious was that it had attached itself to the exact same spot where the large blue diamond marking was on his skin. In fact, it was a perfect outline--the crystal completely covered it. When he looked back into the mirror, the pattern was the exact same as it had been before...only now, the first diamond was three-dimensional.

_So...that's what attracts it? _Reala hypothesized. _That's the thing on my chest that holds it there. It's...some kind of receptor spot which connects the crystal's power to my body. But...does that mean there are two other crystals which go here? _He fingered the skin of the other two diamond shapes over his lower chest and abdomen. It felt so tender and vulnerable.

_Ah...whatever. _Reala finally turned away from his image in the mirror, determined to put it out of his mind for now. _That's probably just something _else _that I can't remember from before I was captured by Wizeman. It'll come back to me eventually. C'mon, now. The bathwater's probably gone cold while I've been gawking at myself. _

He slipped into the bathtub, commanding himself to forget and just relax and enjoy the bath. But as he nestled down into the water, propping his head up on his squishy sensors, he knew that it was going to take a while to soak away.

(-)

Tiana swung her legs back and forth through the air as she concentrated on the battle in front of her. Her party had just been ambushed by a pack of goblins on the road as they were heading towards Falltop Mountain, though she wasn't actually getting much action in this one. The swordsmen and magic-users were being overly trigger-happy today. But she was content to just watch. Besides, it was fun to eavesdrop on the chat session.

A message suddenly popped up for her. In the bubble right over her character's head were the online chat system symbols for "no", "fighting", and "why". They were asking her why she wasn't fighting.

Quickly, she brought up the chat system menu and responded with the "anger" symbol...followed by the "clown", and the bird symbol for "fly".

A long series of question marks popped up in response...then the madly laughing face.

"Clown-fly-question-mark?"

"Clown-fly. Extreme dislike."

"ROFL."

_I wonder what kind of havoc he's wreaking on the rest of my house..._ Tiana thought as she stared at the television screen on her bookcase. _Ah, well, maybe he went off to poke through my mother's private things. _

Tiana had been boarded up in her room for the past hour and a half, but she knew it couldn't last forever. In fact, she had the sinking feeling right now that she was going to have to come out very soon. Her dirty lunch plate and glass were still sitting on the bed next to her, and she needed to use the bathroom.

She took a deep breath. Oh well...she was going to have to come out and face him again sometime...it might as well be now. Regretfully, she put up the symbols for "a few more minutes" and switched the game onto standby mode. They wouldn't miss her--they'd probably finish off the rest of the goblin squad in the two minutes that she would be gone. Ah well.

Bravely, Tiana sat up, scooped up her plate and cup, and made her way to the door. She hesitated for a moment before opening it, regretting that she didn't have a key to her own room, so she couldn't lock it behind her. She'd just have to be quick--drop off her stuff, go to the bathroom, and come right back. With any luck, Reala was in a completely different room, and he wouldn't even notice.

At last, she stepped completely away from the door frame and glanced, warily around the corridor. Hmm...no signs of life at all. She carefully made her way down the hallway, almost on tiptoes, and glanced by the parlor. Nothing there either. She smiled. _He's gone. Maybe he actually left the house and flew off somewhere. Finally. I mean, I don't see why he has to hang around here all the time, regardless of that "contract" thing..._

She easily stepped into the kitchen, depositing her cup and plate into the sink for her mother to deal with later. Several other dishes were stacked inside of it from previous days. If only they had a dishwasher.

Tiana wondered why the door to the bathroom was closed as she approached it, but quickly brushed that thought off. Maybe she'd closed it herself without even realizing this morning. She'd done that a few times before.

Happily, she slipped it open, thinking only of getting back to the game as soon as possible...and again, froze in place in the doorway.

Reala turned to look at her, the exact same unconcerned look on his face as when she'd caught him reading her papers. This time, he sighed when he turned back again, anticipating the screaming.

But Tiana didn't scream. She was too busy goggling at the discovery.

Reala sat up in the bathtub, and something poked up above the water and over the slippery porcelin edge. A long, thin, flopping fin.

"Y...You're...you're a _mermaid_?!" Tiana exclaimed.

Reala turned back towards her, a scowl twisting his black lips.

"Er...mer...man...jester...thing..." she awkwardly attempted to correct herself.

His long blue flipper splashed back down into the water of the bathtub, and he seemed to relax a bit more, knowing that she wasn't going to scream now. "Oh, yes. And that's not all." He slipped back a little in the tub and dunked his entire head under the water.

Tiana took a slow, hesitant step forward, a bit apprehensive, but extremely curious. The surprise she felt now was more of an amazed fascination. This was another one of those things...like the lyre. Another new, different part of him that was just being revealed to her now...like some kind of hidden dimension. So, if he grew a mermaid tail when the lower half of him was in water, then...?

Slowly, she peered over the edge of the bathtub and looked down into its hollow basin. Her mouth dropped open slightly in awe.

The creature inside her bathtub was no longer Reala...but a light blue-colored dolphin. Its dorsal fin poked up out of the water, but its long snout and side flippers remained submerged, along with most of its tail. The back of its head was colored with red-and-black stripes. It whirled around onto its back to face her, and she could see a blue crystal stuck onto a spot right in between its flippers, like a collar.

"Oh...my gosh..." Slowly, she began to reach out her hand to touch it. "You...you're a dolphin. That's so...cute!"

"That's it--I'm getting outta here."

"_Eeeeyaaa_!!" Tiana screamed and wrenched her head away as Reala suddenly transformed back into his human-like figure in a burst of light and clambered out of the bathtub. "Don't do that!!"

Reala frowned back at her as he stood in front of the mirror, the water dripping off his bare body and onto the rug, and her face remained buried against one of her sleeves. "For your information, I have no actual, physical gender," he informed her. "So it really doesn't matter if I'm naked or not, since I have none of the characteristics..."

"_Whatever_! Just put some clothes on already!!"

"Fine." He grabbed one of the towels off the towel rack next to the sink and held it up in front of him. "You know..." he considered, looking down at the diamonds on his chest. "...I don't even have nipples."

"Aaaah! Shut up!" Tiana cried, burying her head even further into her arm.

"Okay, okay," Reala finally conceded, wrapping the towel securely around his waist and gathering up the pile of his clothes on the floor. "But you didn't seem to mind at all when I was a 'mermaid'."

She didn't move an inch from her position.

"And you can stop that now," he announced. "I've got a towel on."

"Just...just go change somewhere else," Tiana mumbled against her arm. "I need to use the bathroom. But don't go in my bedroom! And don't get water all over everything!"

Reala had to clench his teeth tightly together to prevent himself from lashing out at her. How dare she order him around like that?

_"No picking on your Explorers, Ree... No wonder they all can't stand you..." _

"Rrrrrrrgh..." he grumbled instead, hurrying out of the bathroom and closing the door behind him. "Bossy..." He quickly used the towel to dry himself off before beginning to slip back into his white stretchy pants. Once again, his bath time had been cut short. It never failed...

By the time Tiana came back out of the bathroom, he was just putting the finishing touches on his jacket. Her gaze went down towards the floor as she began to walk past him.

"I noticed you rejected my culinary masterwork," he spoke up, crossing his arms.

"You used rotten vegetables!" Tiana halted for a moment to argue back, though she still didn't turn to look at him. "Eating that thing would've sent me to the hospital!"

"I only used what was in your fridge. Why were you keeping all those vegetables in there if they were inedible?"

"I don't know..." Tiana lost her wind and just trudged back off down the hall towards her room. Thankfully, Reala didn't follow.

Upon entering her bedroom, she brought her game back out of sleep mode to find a message waiting for her. Just as she'd predicted, her party had already finished off the rest of the goblin squad.

"Time-long-why?"

"Mmmm..." Tiana slipped back onto her bed, feeling drained. All of this had just taken so much out of her... She brought up the communication screen and swiftly typed in her reply.

"Clown-fly. Bathroom-embarrassment. Extreme dislike."

(-)

Tiana lied back on her mountain of three pillows, flipping through the pages of one of her favorite comic books. At last, she was completely relaxed...and yet she somehow couldn't concentrate on what she was doing. She knew the comic's story already, of course, but she couldn't even get any pleasure from reviewing the pictures. Her eyes just glanced right over them, as if she didn't really see them.

_I've never yelled so much in my life..._ she realized. She couldn't even remember a time in the past when she'd yelled at somebody before like she'd screamed at Reala. Even when one of her former friends had discovered her secret stash of drawings, she hadn't blown up on her like that.

She found herself thinking back to what had made her want to Dualize with Reala in the first place. _I thought that...I'd be able to be myself around him. Yeah, right. If I ever tried being myself around him, he'd call me stupid or something... I can't believe I ever thought that..._

Tiana stared blankly into the page of her comic book, a boy and a girl frozen in the middle of an argument within their white-lined box. Some fuzzy outline of a realization was beginning to form in her mind.

_Actually_, she considered, _I _have _been myself all day. Except when I was with Lily. Whenever I thought something, I just blurted it out. With him, I don't have to worry about it sounding nice. I don't have to fake happiness or friendliness. _She gave off a small giggle. _Actually, I yell at people like that all the time in my head--I've just never said it out loud! You know, that's another reason I've always hated real people. They're all so superficial. _

For some reason, the images floated into her mind again of Reala's dolphin shape and of the brief glimpse she'd had of his bare upper half. He'd looked so strange like that... Dolphins were supposed to be gentle creatures...it didn't make any sense for him to be a dolphin. And without his shirt on, he'd looked even scrawnier than normal. It just wasn't right. Perhaps that was why she couldn't get those images out of her head--they were just so out-of-place with everything else about him. That strange _thing _in the bathtub had hardly seemed like Reala at all.

Just then, there was a light knocking noise from the other side of the door. _Speak of the devil..._ Tiana rolled her eyes and set her comic book aside. _Well, I may as well see what he wants. It's been quite a while, and I haven't actually heard anything. _

She made her way to the door and cautiously creaked it open, making sure to sufficiently guard her doorway. Two seconds later, she flung it the rest of the way open in surprise.

The face that appeared on the other side was not Reala's...but her mother's. "Mom?!" Was it _that_ late already?

"Tiana?" her mother gave her a soft, concerned look. "Are you all right? You don't usually have the door closed..."

"Oh, no, I'm fine!" Tiana quickly replied. "I just closed it to change my clothes, and...then, I guess I just forgot to open it again!"

"Oh, all right," her mother accepted the excuse. "So you had a good day at school, then?"

"Um...yeah!" _Yup. I missed breakfast, had Stella mad at me, failed my quiz, and then I was attacked by a bunch of goopy black invisible monsters. It was just fantastic! _

"And I found this laying out on the coffee table," Ms. Weaver continued, holding up an omelet on a plate. "Is it yours?"

Tiana stared at it in confusion. _What the...? _"Uh...no. What was that doing there?"

Ms. Weaver looked down at it and raised her eyebrows. "I have no idea. I certainy couldn't have left it there this morning--it's still warm. Are you _sure _it's not yours?"

Tiana's heart skipped a beat. _It was Reala. What, did he make himself an omelet and then forget about it? He wouldn't do that... Unless..._

"Uh...oh, yeah!" Tiana feigned remembering. "It _is _mine! I forgot that I made that a few minutes ago. I don't know why I left it on the coffee table, though."

Ms. Weaver laughed a little as she handed it to her. "Well, you left your fork and knife and napkins there too! Were you planning on eating in the parlor?"

Tiana shrugged. "No idea. Thanks for bringing it to me, though."

"You're welcome." Ms. Weaver vanished into her own bedroom on the left to deposit her jacket and lunch bag. "Though I hope you've been working on your homework."

Tiana scowled as she brought the omelet back into her room with her. Again with the homework.

She set the plate down on her desk and began to examine it. Hmm...no signs of rotting. It smelled perfectly fine, felt perfectly fine, looked perfectly fine. And so, she sat down...and slowly began to eat it.

(-)

"So..._why_ can't you go on the couch?"

"I told you--your mother would sit on me!"

"Kheeheeheeheehee! You're afraid of being sat on?"

"No--I don't want her having any kind of contact with me! She'd go ballistic and call it a ghost and hire an exorcist. She might want to move. And I definitely _do not_ want to put up with that nonsense."

Unfortunately, Tiana found herself once again engaging in an argument with Reala, this time over where he was going to sleep. Ever since her mother came home, they'd been struggling to make sure that the two of them did not come into any kind of contact. Reala was forced to be quiet and not move anything while she was in the room, which Tiana had taken full advantage of. At least she remembered to bring him something back from the dinner table, though he once again scoffed at the meager portions. At last, the day was almost over, but now they had _this _issue to work out.

"You're certainly not coming in my room."

"What does it matter if I'm in your room? I couldn't possibly do any more 'damage' than what I've already done. And besides, your room is actually the safest place for me to be in this situation."

Tiana groaned. _That...makes sense. Darn it, why does he have to be all logical like that? I can't think of a good enough reason not to. Well, I guess it's true. If he's already seen all of my papers, I've got nothing more to hide..._

"Fine," she finally decided. "But you're sleeping on the floor."

"Now why should I do that when you've got that nice fold-up cot in your closet that no one's ever going to use?"

Tiana froze. "How do you know about that?!"

He smirked. "What do you think I've been doing all this time you've been locked up in your room like a moody little girl?"

Tiana ground her teeth in frustration. Had he gone through their _entire _house already?! Great. Now she was going to have to haul that thing out... Or maybe not...

"Hey, Mom?" Tiana called into her mother's bedroom. "Do you know where my fold-away cot from camp is?"

"I believe it's in the closet, dear." Ms. Weaver stepped out of the room in a baggy pink pajama set. "What do you need that old thing for?"

"Well, I just wanted to lay in it sometimes, near the window. You know, for the fresh air."

"And you have to have it now?"

"Uh...yeah. I couldn't sleep well last night because there wasn't any air..."

Ms. Weaver let out a tired sigh and stepped up to the closet on the other side of the hallway. "Okay, honey. I'll get it out for you. Just give me a minute...it's kind of far back there..."

Tiana could feel Reala's angular eyes stabbing into the back of her neck as she watched her mother struggle to unearth the old metal cot. _This is all _your _fault, you know_, she mentally chided him.

Afer the thing finally popped out of the closet, amidst the towers of other old junk, Ms. Weaver simply handed it to her and told her that she would have to set it up herself. "Good night," she called as she stepped back into her bedroom, completely tired out now. "Make sure you get up in time to catch the bus tomorrow."

"Yeah. Thanks, Mom." Tiana turned and padded back into her own room on her fluffy green slippers.

Reala rose from his position on top of her hamper and tugged the folded cot out of her hands. Without saying a word, he glided up next to her desk and pushed it aside to make room for the cot--indeed right underneath the window.

_Ah, well. I never sit at my desk anyway_, Tiana thought as she plopped onto her bed in exhaustion. She'd never felt so tired before in her life. Usually, she was up until at least midnight, scribbling away in her notebooks, but it was only ten-thirty and she was completely wiped out. Probably all that screaming. And running from Voidables. And chucking Reala out the door. _Thank God he's setting up the cot on his own. Ah, he probably just wants to make sure it's done right or something. Oh...but there was that..._

Tiana was hesitant to break the silence barrier. It was actually kind of peaceful right now. And she wasn't even sure about it. "Um..." she finally ventured, her voice soft. "...I wanted to thank you for the..."

"Don't get used to it," Reala cut her off, a finality in his sharp voice. And that was all that was ever said about it.

"Well?" he asked a moment later, once he'd finally got the cot up, its thin cushion extending over a sheet of metal springs. "Don't I at least get a pillow? Surely you don't need all three of those."

"Here, take it," Tiana replied, tossing it at him over her shoulder. "And take this too--I know you're going to ask."

A thin, fuzzy blanket followed the same arch as the pillow, and Reala expertly snatched them out of the air, setting them over the cot. He slipped off his boots and jacket before climbing into his makeshift bed. Softly, he settled his head down into the pillow, facing the window, and closed his eyes, thankful for the rest at last.

Today had been unusually exhausting. Fighting the Voidables. Trying to control his temper. Spending a whole hour figuring out how to work a stove. He'd had no idea how hard it would be to resist the urge to strangle her all day...all the while seeing NiGHTS's stupid face in his mind, reprimanding him.

"Good night," Tiana's voice sounded from the other side of the room.

_Errrk!_ Reala's face twisted in frustration and disgust. _Argh! Then she has to say stuff like _that_..._ Once again, he found himself battling against his immediate desire to jump out of the cot and smack her. "D-Don't...ever...say that...to me...again..."

Tiana heard his low, growling, warning voice and tucked herself closer into the covers. _Geez. Just trying to be polite. Though I suppose I didn't _really_ mean it..._

She took a deep breath and dove into the fantasy world inside her mind, trying to just forget everything for now. At last, she could truly get away from the world...from Reala, and from reality itself. In her sleep.


	4. Great Barrier: The Reality of Life

...So I lied. I don't think I could write anything short if I _tried_.

And it's my birthday! Yay!! I'm getting myself the Japanese PS2 revamp of NiD, though it's going to take a while to get here. It's costing a small fortune, but I've been saving up for a while. I can't wait!

Yay, Awakers! I wanted to get them into the story earlier, so that they'd have more of a presence. ...Am I the only one who actually thinks they're cute? They're cute little shiny floating squishy things! That's much better than some alarm clock coming out of a random egg...

Seriously, I have no idea where the name "Typicaste" came from. I'm just...weird like that.

I always wondered what happened behind the closed door of Aqua Garden... Yeah, I made that part up.

And help has finally arrived! Please let me know how my characterization of him is. I know right now, he might seem a little too crazy-hyper-sugarhigh, but he'll calm down later, after he gets over the shock and elation. Well...a little bit.

Reala, NiGHTS, Owl, the Awakers, and all those other cool things belong to Sonic Team! I own Tiana and co., Typicaste, and the Voidables! Um...yay?

Next update won't be for a while again, because I have a whole bunch of random things that I need to organize. Though it's going to be a lot of fun...

(-)

Chapter 4: Great Barrier: The Reality of Life

"Errrrrrrg..." Slowly, the world was coming back. She didn't want it to, but it had to eventually. Gradually, Tiana moved through the fuzzy state of semi-consciousness, her senses whirring and coming back to life. There was the same damp smell of her room...the feel of the soft covers folding around her body...that gentle, deep, rhthmic noise... _Bloop...bloop-bloop...bloop...bloop-bloop..._ Like bubbles escaping from her mouth. Wait a minute...what _was _making that noise?

Carefully, Tiana cracked her eyelids open, the fuzzy, blurred edges of the world taking a minute solidify around her. She squinted. Everything was so...bright. It was hard to make out. There were odd white streaks moving across her ceiling...

Her eyes slid all the way open. All of a sudden, she didn't feel one bit drowsy anymore, yet she stayed frozen against her bed. _What the...?! What are _those _things?! _

They looked like ghosts, she immediately thought, but they were too..._happy_ to be ghosts. They floated in place around her, contentedly, not bothering anything. Most of them actually had their backs to her, and all she could see were their round, shiny white backs and short tails. That was when she happened to look down at her own body.

"Augh!" Three more of these creatures were clustered on top of her chest, looking immensely proud of their shiny little selves. They had small, fin-like arms and another fin-like protrusion on their heads, which curled around their bodies. They had eyes, rimmed with black, but no mouths or noses. Slowly, gingerly, she sat up in bed, watching the creatures slide off her chest and plop onto her bed like soap bubbles with another one of those _bloop-bloop-bloop_ noises. And that's when she realized what they were all staring at.

Reala was already awoke and dressed, sitting on the edges of his cot...and silently strumming out a melody on his invisible lyre. The creatures were all listening to him play. Some of them were even nestled on his lap, over his shoulders, or on top of his head, their eyes closed, blissfully. They were somehow attracted to the sound of the lyre and were compelled to gather around it. Tiana couldn't help but stare in pure awe...not at the creatures, but at Reala. Not only was he producing that uncharacteristically gentle sound again, but he was allowing these things to cuddle close to him, as if they were his pets.

_Maybe they _are _his pets..._ Tiana considered. _Yet another thing I didn't know about... Another one of those little secrets...like the dolphin._

Just at that moment, Reala opened his eyes again, and the lyre vanished, though the creatures didn't dissipate. His bluish face stared into hers...and for a strange half-second, he almost smiled. "Ah. I see they have returned. Good morning."

"Good...morning..." Tiana slowly replied. _Wasn't he just mad at me last night for saying good night to him?_ "Um...what...?" Her eyes wandered to the round, white creatures floating around her room, and the three that had been on her bed flew up to join their comrades.

"Oh, these are just the Awakers," Reala explained, brushing two of them off his lap. "They won't hurt you. Not while you're awoke, anyway. They live here, though most people can't see them. They get mistaken for ghosts all the time."

Tiana stared down at her covers. "But...why were those three sitting on my chest like that?"

"Ah, well, the Awakers can travel to Nightopia in groups of threes and bring people back here. It's what they do. It's really the only thing they _can _do. I just had those three go get you. Your alarm wasn't going to go off for another hour. And it didn't take very long at all, since you aren't able to fully enter Nightopia."

"What's Nightopia?" _I think he mentioned something like that before...but he wouldn't really tell me about it. _

Reala groaned and got up from the cot. The Awakers were beginning to disperse now, though a few still clung to his head and shoulders. He really didn't want to tell her about Nightopia at all, but he supposed that she'd have to learn about it sometime. Better this way than from someone like that stupid Owl. "It's the other world opposite from this one. The world you go to when you're asleep. Only you don't get to go there. While this is the Waking World, Nightopia is the Dreaming World, which my brother is the guardian of. It sort of has its own equivalents of Voidables and Awakers, called Nightmaren and Nightopians. But you don't need to worry about any of that. Actually, it would be best if you just forget it."

But Tiana hadn't even heard that last sentence at all. She'd understood what Nightopia was, but she was struck by only one thing in his explanation, and it had completely overshadowed the rest. "...You have a brother, Reala?" _Come to think of it, he did say "we" once...when he was explaining everything to me. He was talking as if he wasn't the only one of his kind. I wonder why I never even thought of that before. _

"Yes." Reala's voice was hard and serious. The word stopped right there--he had no intention of continuing. His darkening face and narrowing eyes seemed to add, "And don't you ever bring the subject up again."

Tiana moved to the edge of her bed, distracting herself from asking more questions. _Wow...gee, I wonder what happened with him and his brother. It sounds like they had some kind of fight. Maybe they disowned each other. Is it possible that his brother is even worse than he is?! I wonder what he looks like... _Tiana could only imagine. She immediately pictured him as being bigger than him, with the same red-and-black striped horns...only maybe he was wearing a blue outfit instead of a red one...and he didn't have those weird black markings through his eyes.

"Shoo! Go away! The show's over!" Reala turned to swipe at a gaggle of remaining Awakers. "And get off me, will you?!" He swatted the others from his head and his shoulders, and they regretfullly flew back through the bedroom window, making sad "_bloop-bloop_" noises. "They'll be back again tomorrow," Reala grumbled. "They always come swarming all over me whenever I hail the sun. It's their most active time of the day. Ah, well, I suppose they've missed me."

"Are you their master or something?" Tiana asked as she got out of bed and pulled on her green slippers. "I thought that they were your pets when I first saw them."

"Oh, no," Reala explained, hovering up over the cot to close the window. "They're free to do whatever they want, but they're just like...allies. They'll follow my orders, but they're not actually bound to me. Probably because I'm the one that protects them from the Voidables."

Tiana couldn't help but smile as she turned to rummage through her closet. The thought of Reala watching over these little white creatures was so cute...and so unlike him.

"It's just my job," he suddenly added, as if reading her thoughts. "It's just what I do. I don't do it beacsue I like them. They just happen to be the upholders of my realm, and having a lot of them around helps me to retain it."

"Mm-hmm. Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say."

"I hate it when they try to get all cuddly with me like that."

"Oh, really? It didn't seem that way to me."

"Just drop it!" Reala finally snapped, his body shaking with suppressed rage. "We've got more important things to worry about right now!"

Tiana whirled away from her closet in alarm. "What? What's going on?! More Voidables?!" She quickly glanced around her room, but didn't see anything wrong. _Now _what was he on about?

"The first portal has opened," Reala clarified, his voice grave as he lowered himself to the ground. "I felt it when the sun rose this morning. It seems you have progressed far enough to create it."

"Portal? What portal?" Tiana frowned. _I created it? What does that mean? I didn't create anything. I wish he'd explain these things instead of just telling me like I should know what he's talking about!_

"The portal to your first reality," Reala answered. "It's an area of the world currently infested with Voidables, and if we manage to defeat these Voidables, you will hopefully be able to produce another ideya."

"Oh." That didn't seem so urgent. "So...why do I need to go through it?"

"Don't you want your ideya?"

"Uh...no. You said I already had an ideya. What do I need another one for? So far, having an ideya hasn't done anything for me. I have the Ideya of Intelligence, and yet I still failed a Spanish test. Why haven't I become a super-genius by now? ...Don't answer that."

Reala clenched his hands into fists. "You'll go through it because I _said so_! And you're going to have another ideya whether you want it or not, because it's the _only _way to significantly fight back against the Voidables!"

Tiana sighed in defeat. There was no way she was going to win _this _argument. "Fine, fine," she at last conceded, turning back to her closet again. "We'll go after school."

"You're not going to school."

"What?!" Immediately, she whirled away again, clutching a dark blue tee-shirt in her hands. _Did he just say that...?! _

"I said, you're not going to school," Reala repeated, floating back up in front of the window in impatience. "Why did you suppose I got you up before your alarm? I had to wait all day yesterday for the darned thing to appear, and now that it's finally here, I have no intention of waiting around here for six hours for you to finish with your bothersome human institutions."

Tiana's gaze fell down to her aqua-colored carpeting as she considered the situation. _I'm not going to school today so I can go through this portal with him? Can I get an excuse note for that? "Dear Principal Edwin, Tiana will not be in school today because she has a very important appointment with the defender of reality to travel through a portal in order to save our world. Please excuse her absence." _She couldn't help giggling a little at that thought, and Reala shot her a patented death glare.

"My mother will kill me if I try skipping school again," she explained. "Though I personally don't feel like going back again at all. After that incident with the Voidables, everyone thinks I'm crazy. But my mother said she'd sell my video games if she heard any more reports about me skipping school."

Reala trembled again and clenched his teeth tightly together to prevent himself from snapping at her again. How could she be thinking of such trivial matters when the fate of her entire planet was hanging in the balance?! But then, he remembered exactly who he was talking to. Tiana couldn't care less about what might happen to the world if she didn't comply. She didn't even care about her own education. The only thing that mattered was that her mother had threatened to take her video games away. He should have been expecting it from her.

"...Okay. Fine," he answered, through his gritted teeth. In order to get anywhere with this girl, he was going to have to make a few concessions. "I'll see to it that that does not happen." _For now. Other times, you won't be so lucky._

"So I'm going to school?" Tiana couldn't help but feel a little disappointed as she turned to pick out a pair of jeans, and laid the selected outfit out across her bed. Going through this portal to fight the Voidables sure sounded much more exciting than going to school and being questioned all day about her sanity. Compared to a day at school in her situation, being attacked by a hoard of evil, black, goopy monsters sounded like whole lot of fun. And as long as she was with Reala, she'd be safe.

That's _a contradictory thought_, Tiana realized. _Feeling _safe _with Reala?_ But she did...at least in the face of the Voidables. And that was probably the only situation in which she would.

"_No_," Reala reiterated, taking deep breaths to maintain his composure. "We're going to the portal. As soon as you do your little human morning things. Don't worry about your mother or the school people. You're not going to lose your 'precious' video game. Because, of course, you wouldn't be able to live without it. You'd just fall down dead, as if someone had just chopped off your legs. And then you'd cry and scream and pull out all your hair, and your mother would have to get some men from the mental hospital to come and restrain you..."

"Okay, okay, shut up, I'm going." Tiana grabbed her outfit and hairbrush and headed for the bathroom. "But you better not be just bluffing."

Reala couldn't help smirking as he lowered himself onto his cot and watched her scurry off down the hall. _I wish I was still a Nightmaren right now..._ he thought, amusedly. _I know the perfect nightmare to give _her_..._

(-)

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." Tiana stepped up to the edge of the sidewalk and wrinkled her nose at their current location. She'd gotten out of bed at five-thirty in the morning and rushed through her house to get ready for _this_? "Gullport Harbor?! Why are we _here_? There's no portal here."

A short, rocky beach ran down from the edge of the sidewalk where she was standing to the murky water in which several dirty, rushed boats bobbed against their docks. One long wooden pier ran out from the beach to the middle of this section of the harbor, connecting the boat docks together. This was probably one of the drabbest and most boring places in the entire east section of the city. No one ever seemed to go out in the boats, no one swam in the water, since it was full of nasty chemicals and waste, and no one ever fished here, either, even for the fun of it, because the water's stench was unbearable. Tiana even remembered people at school joking that if there even _were _any fish in it, they must be freakish mutants with ten eyes or two heads. The whole dreariness of the scene was enhanced by the dark and pressure-filled atmosphere today. It looked like it was going to start raining any second...or perhaps a thunderstorm was on its way. Looking at this gray harbor, Tiana almost expected a bolt of lightening to shoot its streaks through the sky.

"Oh, yes, there is." Reala glided past her, stopping to hover just above the base of the pier, where it jutted out from the beach. His bright red-and-white colors stood out in sharp contrast against his background. "Portals always tend to appear at points in your own neighborhood which have been affected by the Voidables. This definitely qualifies." He turned and flew off over the water. "It's probably somewhere in this water here."

Tiana's heart leaped a little in her chest. _I'm going to have to go _in _that nasty water?! With these clothes on?! This is one of my favorite tee-shirts!_ "No way," she resolutely replied. "I'm not going in there. I don't care about finding this stupid portal. There's no way I'm going in that disgusting water."

Reala gritted his teeth again, his back still turned to her. _Concessions..._ "Fine, fine. I'll go find it first, so you can just hop in and not worry about getting your clothes and your hair all _dirty_, like a little girly girl. It doesn't matter to _me_. Why should it matter to me? Even if I only have _one _set of clothes to wear..."

Tiana sighed and carefully made her way down the rocky beach as he rambled on and on in the distance. She couldn't be sure which reaction she preferred--his snappping at her or going off on extended, sarcastic rants like this. She'd just have to stand here and ignore it until he found the location of the portal. If only there was some actual _sand_ on this so-called beach...

Tiana sat down on one of the larger rocks and simply watched. All of a sudden, Reala dove down into the water, a burst of white sparkles spraying out from the spot where his body touched the surface. _He turned into a dolphin again..._ Tiana realized, and she squinted at that spot on the water, hoping to get another look at his strange dolphin form. The water was too dark and murky to see anything. She had a sudden urge to walk down the wooden pier, but was too afraid that Reala would notice and try to knock her into the water.

As she sat back on the rock and waited for him to search the harbor underwater, her mind turned back to the idea of the portal. _What does this portal thing look like anyway? _she wondered. _If it's taking this long to find it, it must not be very conspicuous. I wonder if I'm even going to be able to see it at all. I might just have to...fall into it. For that matter, how will I know when he's really found it? He could just say that he found it and trick me into jumping into the water. He'd do something like that. And how am I supposed to go through it, anyway? Will just jumping into it work? What...what would it feel like?! Is it going to be painful?!_

Tiana gasped when something popped up out of the water, close to the shore where her rock was. The long snout of a pale blue bottlenose dolphin, those familiar stripes running down the back of its head. Suddenly, she noticed that it had the same curved black markings running through its eyes too.

"Well?" Tiana was startled to hear Reala's deep, gruff voice coming out of its snout. "I've seen it. It's at the end of the dock, so you can just walk down the wooden planks and jump off the end. It's actually pretty convenient."

_This is so weird! He can _talk_ while he's a dolphin?! And why didn't his head transform back? It's above the water. Unless he can choose when to transform or not. Or it's only "upper-half and lower-half"..._

Reala sighed through his blowhole. "So are you coming to the portal, or are you going to just stand there all day, goggling at me like an airhead?!"

"Ah!" Tiana snapped out of her awestruck trance and stepped down from the rock, towards the long pier. "I-I was just...kind of stunned for a moment, there."

Reala groaned and turned away from her again, towards the end of the pier. "This is why I hate morphing." He ducked his head back under the water again, his dorsal fin sticking out of the water as he began to swim back down.

Carefully, Tiana stepped onto the narrow wooden path and followed the fin's progress. The water was too muddy and dark to see anything else below it. That was probably why it had taken him so long to find the portal--he couldn't see anything a foot in front of his face. It was amazing that he'd been able to find his way back to her location.

Tiana cringed when the wooden platform began to waver underneath her feet. She was getting father out now--the dock was no longer anchored to the sea floor and simply floated on the surface. She had to step lightly now so that she didn't slip off or cause the thing to sink under. She was almost past all the rusted boats now...

And then...at last...the edge. Tiana couldn't help but gulp with anxiety as she watched her small, black sneaker press against the bobbing edge of the wooden plank, pushing it down into the water. There was no going back now. She looked up to see the blue fin circling around in front of her...then Reala's dolphin head poked up again.

"And there you go. All you need to do is jump into it. Though we should probably go at about the same time. I'll swim in from the side."

That was when Tiana noticed a difference in the water in front of him. Instead of its normal dark, muddy brown, it was laced with dark purple streaks...and swirling around in a large circle, like some kind of whirlpool. Her chest clutched just looking at it. She was going to have to go in _there_?! The world went completely silent for a moment as she stared into its depths. The dense air seemed even heavier than before. What was going to happen to her if she went into that thing? It looked like some kind of evil, warped dimension, waiting to swallow her up...

"What are you waiting for?!" the Reala-dolphin snapped. "I know you don't have your Ideya of Courage, but for crying out loud, it's just a portal! It's not going to kill you!"

_Well, that made me feel a lot better_, Tiana sarcastically thought. _But he probably couldn't make someone feel comfortable even if he really tried. _

She took a moment to close her eyes and try to block out the daunting sight before her. Concentrate...there...that's it... If she turned her mind inward, she could block out her surroundings, only focusing on her own thoughts, her own spirit. She could see them in her mind...the characters from Battle Fantasy World...the magical creatures from the Flopper series...the fantastical worlds from her favorite comic books... If she only concentrated on them, everything else didn't matter. It didn't matter that she was standing in the middle of a dirty harbor in front of a menacing whirlpool with a multicolored dolphin glaring at her. They were with her, and no matter what happened, they'd still be there in her head, helping her through this. Even if she died.

So at last, she began to draw in her breath...taking the biggest, deepest breath she could muster. After all, she wasn't sure how long she was going to be underwater... And then, her eyes still closed tightly, she sprang from the end of the dock, feeling the boards bob back up underneath her...and fell down...down...down...into the portal.

There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. She couldn't feel the water, she didn't hear a splash...she couldn't even feel the wind rushing over her body. She just continued moving downwards...not actually falling, but being pushed down... Yet, she still didn't dare open her eyes.

_Where am I going? _Tiana dimly wondered, in the midst of this bare, black, silent descent. _Am I dying? am I drowning? Am I in the portal? Where does the portal go? Will I ever...come back?_ It was the first time she'd ever thought about coming back. It was the first time she'd ever thought that she might want to.

But somehow, even as she continued slipping further and further downwards, she had some kind of warm sense of protection. No matter what happened, she was going to be okay. She didn't know how she knew it...but at that moment, she just _did_. She could feel it...from somewhere within.

(-)

"Haaaahhhhh..." Owl sighed as he settled onto the edge of the Dream Fountain, taking a rest. At last, there was a moment of repose from the constant stream of Visitors who had been passing through the Dream Gate on the way to their respective Nightopias. It was always nighttime _somewhere_ in the world. At least no one in these last couple of groups of Visitors had been actively conscious of being in the Dreaming World. They had only shuffled like zombies through the gate, into their doors, and Owl knew that they wouldn't remember ever coming through here at all. Only special Visitors would be able to become true Dreamers, as Will and Helen had been. And right now, there was no dire need for them.

Owl closed his small gray eyes behind his spectacles to reflect on the most recent events. Now that Wizeman had been temporarily defeated, more common people had begun to dream again. There were hardly any Nightmaren left to take their ideya away...and yet most of these people didn't have a full set of ideya. _They must have had their ideya stolen on a previous visit_, Owl considered. _That must be the case. Otherwise, how could there be Visitors with only three or four? Human beings themselves are the ones who produce ideya..._ Owl frowned and settled his head down closer to his body. _But then...then, there's that girl..._

Lately, he'd been seeing a girl with brown hair appear, curled up on the floor of the Dream Gate, apparently sleeping. _Sleeping_ during a dream. It was simply unheard of. She never woke up. She never got up, no matter how much he prodded her, and she only stayed curled up in that very same position until a group of Awakers came to fetch her. _Awakers_ in the Dream Gate. And what was even stranger was that no Nightopia doors appeared for her. She didn't _have _a dream to go to. It was like something was preventing her from dreaming. In all the years Owl had been the protector of the Dream Gate he'd never seen anything like this. Well...plenty of strange things _had _been going on as of late.

He opened his eyes just slightly to gaze down at the white bandage wrapped over his right wing and sighed. Well, it was times like these when he knew for sure just how needed he was. Goodness, whatever would have happened if he hadn't been here to oversee these unusual goings-on? The Dreaming World would've surely fallen into complete chaos.

Owl raised his head as something in the distance suddenly caught his eye. A twinkle. Soft white sparkles were fading into existence at the front of the fountain. More Visitors? Owl hopped around the edge of the fountain towards their source, curiously. His breath knotted up within his chest. No...no, those weren't the same sparkles that appeared whenever a new Visitor was entering. This was something very different.

He watched in pure awe as they grew and congregated around one single point, the tiny white orbs glowing in holy mystique against the darkness of the Dream Gate's surroundings. Owl could barely even think. The sight was just so wondrous and breath-taking. There was something about this...something very familiar...and something very important. He kept his eyes glued to that spot in fascination...waiting for it.

The gently floating sparkles hung, immobilized in mid-air for a moment more...before all of a sudden, they changed course, rushing to congregate around their central source. As they zoomed together from all directions, a flash of brilliant, blinding white light penetrated through the entire Dream Gate, and Owl automatically recoiled, covering his face with his wing. And then they were gone.

"Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhh..." Two long arms stretched up into the air, as the last of the sparkles were fading away. Then, they folded themselves back...behind two soft horns. "That was refreshing."

Owl's heart quivered just a little bit behind his wing. That voice... That _voice_... There was no mistaking that voice... But it was impossible...wasn't it?

At last, he brought his trembling wing down, away from his face...and his heart leaped straight up into his throat. "AAAAAAAUGH!!"

Casually hanging there, in the air in front of him...was a long, thin creature...with two purple striped horns, a pink jacket, white sleeves, and two large boots... _NiGHTS..._

He whirled around, a smile lighting up his face. "Owl! Hi!!"

"_Aaaaaaugh_!!"

"Uh...er, what's the matter?"

"Y-Y-Y-Yih..." Owl nearly fell backwards into the fountain as he struggled to contain himself. "Y-You were dead! I thought you were dead! Everyone thought you were dead! But-but you're not! You're alive! You're really alive!!"

NiGHTS cocked his floating head to the side a bit, confusedly. "You thought I was dead?"

"Yes, yes!" Owl squawked. "We all thought you were dead! So did Will and Helen! They thought you died when you defeated Wizeman!"

NiGHTS gasped, pressing his gloved hands over his mouth, his half-lidded eyes widening in shock. "Ohmygosh!! What made them think _that_?!"

"They saw you disappear into thin air right in front of them!"

He felt his heart begin to pound in desperation. "Oh! Oh, no! No, I wasn't _dying_! I was just transporting myself back here! I know it took a little while, and I was hanging around in limbo, taking a bit of a rest after all that...but, ohmygosh! I never meant to give them _that_ impression! This is just horrible!! I've got to go tell them!!" NiGHTS zipped into the air above the Dream Gate, speeding towards the doors on the outer rim.

"_Waaaaaaaaaiiit_!!" Owl shrieked, and he skidded himself to a halt, yanking his body back over to face him. Poor Owl was so shocked and flustered and disturbed that he could scarely catch his breath again. Everything was happening so quickly. NiGHTS was alive, he'd just transported himself here, the kids didn't know, and ohmygoodness, there was just so much to discuss! "I-I-I-I...I have things to talk to you about! Lots of things! Goodness, I thought you were dead! I thought I'd never see you again! Don't just run off on me so soon!"

Gently, NiGHTS glided back down to his side, the emergency temporarily put aside. Oh... He'd been so wrapped up in making sure Will and Helen were okay that he'd completely forgotten about Owl himself. The poor old bird had been in the same situation...perhaps something even worse, considering that he'd had to guard the Dream Gate all by himself while he'd been gone. His sudden reappearance had nearly given him a heart attack.

"Oh, I'm sorry..." NiGHTS was back at Owl's side near the fountain, and the bird took a moment just to gaze in wonderment into his warm flesh-colored face and jewel-like blue eyes. He'd thought that he'd never get to see this gentle, familiar face again...

Owl finally took a deep breath. "Well...many odd things have been happening around here lately, and I wanted to get a chance to talk to you about them, since you might know a bit more about them than I do..."

What...? Something was...different about the way Owl looked. Well, one of his wings was in a sling, first of all, but...that wasn't what he was seeing. NiGHTS's breath caught. He lowered himself to the ground and took a step closer.

"I've been trying to think of some explanation, but I really can't come up with anything proper, although I do have a slight inkling of an idea of what might be causing them..."

NiGHTS's eyes again widened. Was...was he really seeing what he thought he was seeing? Yes...yes, he really was! His eyes grew even wider, and a smile began to blossom over his face.

"But I really needed confirmation, because I know there are some things that even I do not know and you seem to have some connection with... What are you...?"

Owl at last trailed off on his long explanation when he noticed the look on NiGHTS's face. His eyes kept getting wider and wider, a gigantic smile stretching further and further across his face as he stared at his chest...gradually bringing his face closer and closer to it...

"_Yyeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah_!!" he burst out, crushing poor Owl into a death-grip of a hug. He coughed, weakly and stuck his beak out over his shoulder. "Ohmygosh!! Ohmygoshohmygosh!! You saw him! You met him! You saw Ree, didn't you?! And you gave him the-the-the... Didn't you?! And you told him about it, didn't you?! Didn't you, didn't you, didn't you?!"

"E-eh..." Owl wheezed as NiGHTS finally let up on him just a little. "Well...uh...er...yes..."

"_Whheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee_!!" NiGHTS rocketed away into the air, a cloud of sparkles spraying out everywhere, as he turned crazy circles, somersaults, and corkscrews across the Dream Gate.

"Uh..." Owl watched him from the ground next to the fountain, a note of skepticism in his voice. "I don't think you should be so happy..."

But NiGHTS never heard a word of it. He continued his celebratory acrobatics, sparkles crackling out of him like fireworks for the next twenty seconds. At last, he swooped down again, grabbing Owl by his one remaining wing and pulling him into a dance in mid-air. "Fooooooor he's a jolly good felllll-oh! For he's a jolly good fellllll-oh!" He swung him around in a circle and hoisted him above his head, ecstatically. "For he's a jolly good felllllll-oooooooh! _That nobody can deny_!!"

"Waaaaaaaugh!" Owl screamed as NiGHTS flung him through the air in celebration. He arched gracefully over the fountain, before crashing painfully to the stone ground on the other side.

"Yaaaaayy!!" NiGHTS cried, completely oblivious.

"Uuuugh..." Owl groaned, weakly pulling himself back up by his one trembling wing. _These flying jester brothers...they're going to kill me yet..._

Hearing his painful groan, NiGHTS finally snapped out of his crazed jubilation. "Oh! Ohmygosh, Owl, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to let go of you!" He flew back down to the ground, gently picking him up and setting him back on the edge of the fountain. "Are you okay?"

"Errrgh..." Owl groaned, carefully lifting his head again to look at him. "I think I might have a huge lump on my head in few hours, but I'll live..."

"I'm sorry..." NiGHTS said again, placing a hand over his soft, feathered head, though his eyes still remained fixed on his brooch-less collar. "I was just so happy... I _am _so happy! And look, your wing is even broken!"

Owl stared back at him, his pointy beak turning downwards in an odd little frown.

"Oh! Er, I meant... Well, that proves it for sure, you know?!" NiGHTS suddenly touched his hands to the underside of Owl's sling and gave it a quick peck of a kiss. "There--all better now!"

_I wish it were that simple..._ Owl took a deep breath and fanned himself a little with his wing. "Hoo, well...I don't mean to disappoint you, but...nothing much has essentially changed..."

"So, what happened?!" NiGHTS asked, settling down in front of him, his eyes wide and bright, like a child on Christmas morning. Once again, it seemed as if he hadn't heard the warning at all. Was there _any _way to get through to him while he was like this? "You gave him the brooch, right? And did he find the crystal? Did he put it on? Did he take off his armor?!"

"Er...well, yes..." Owl replied, hesitant to confirm his hopes. "He told me to let you know..."

NiGHTS's face froze again, completely floored. "He...he told you to tell me? _He _told _you_ to tell _me_?! Ohmygosh!!"

"Really, he said it quite grudgingly!" Owl raised his voice to add. "And the whole experience was entirely unpleasant! It doesn't matter what he looks like on the outside now, he was still the same wicked creature as ever!"

NiGHTS just waved a hand at him as his face flushed with excitement. "Oh, yes, yes, of course he was. But what happened after that?!"

Owl settled his large head down against his squat body, solidly. "Why, then he just went through the Waking Door and disappeared."

NiGHTS froze again from his position, floating in front of the fountain. "...The Waking Door? _The Waking Door_?! The Waking Door!!" He turned to the right, catching sight of the bluish, crystalline door in the side of the round, stone building and immediately made a dash for it. "The Waking Door is open, the Waking Door is open! Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, the Waking Door is _open_!! I'm gonna go see him!!"

_Why must he repeat everything three times like that? _

"Wait!" Owl called again, and thankfully, NiGHTS heard, twisting his head around to look back at him again. "I...I really don't think that's a good idea. You're going to be severely disappointed...perhaps even injured. I...I can't allow you to just throw yourself into a risk like this, especially after believing for so long that you were dead..." Owl couldn't understand. He'd never really felt so attached to NiGHTS before...but after being without him, it seemed, somehow, like there was a connection. That they had known each other for much longer than he realized. At least that was the way he felt.

NiGHTS smiled, gently and reassuringly. "It's okay, Owl. You don't have to worry. Everything's going to be just fine now. Everything's going to come back to the way it once was. You'll see. I'll be back, I promise. So hold down the fort for me while I'm gone!"

_"Hold down the fort"? _Owl was just going to ask what he meant by that, but it was already too late. NiGHTS zoomed through the bluish door and was gone just as suddenly as he had appeared.

(-)

At last, Tiana felt something push against her feet. Hesitantly, she opened her mouth...and took a deep breath. The air felt so...fresh. A warm, gentle breeze brushed past her bare arms. The high-pitched call of a bird shot into her ears from the distance. So, she finally thought, it was safe to open her eyes.

She gaped. An endless, flat, smooth surface spread in front of her--water...bordered by an equally expansive, clear blue sky. It was such a complete contrast to the dull, dirty gray harbor from which she had just come that she couldn't help but stare for a moment in pure awe. A moment later, she turned away to see that she was standing on the edge of a different dock, this one much cleaner, sturdier, and running horizontally around a stone wall.

The whole calming effect of the scene was then ruined by the sight of Reala, back to normal form, standing next to her and scowling.

"Um...where are we?" she chanced to ask him.

He shrugged. "Somewhere off the coast of Australia, I presume. It doesn't matter. Our real destination lies out there." He pointed one sharp fingernail at the expanse of the sea before them. "The Great Barrier Reef."

"The Great Barrier Reef?!" Tiana cried. "The _real_ Great Barrier Reef? How did that portal take us all the way here?!"

Reala just shrugged again and squinted into the distance, looking for something.

Tiana gaped back across the sea, following his gaze, but she couldn't see anything in the midst of all that water. For a moment, she turned to look behind her, but only caught a glimpse of one cluster of dull-colored buildings before Reala's claw clamped itself over her arm, forcing her back around. He didn't say a word, but he didn't actually need to. It wasn't important. She should just ignore it. That wasn't what they were here for.

"Ah," Reala spoke again, lifting his hand from her arm. "There. I see it. Come on."

"See what?" Tiana stared back over the sea again, but still didn't see anything.

His head snapped back over at her. "The _anchor point_, genius. That's what we _came_ here for. Let's go."

"Oh...okay." _He didn't say anything about "anchor points" before. It was just Voidables and ideya..._ Mentally, Tiana groaned. _Though I suppose if I said, "What are anchor points?" right now, he'd probably snap at me again for not magically knowing what they were. I'm not a mind reader, you know... Though that would be pretty cool. Hey, I wonder if I could read his mind while I'm inside his body. I should try that sometime... Heheh...I bet I could find out some embarrassing secret about him and use it as blackmail. Like...he loves fluffy kittens. _That'll_ be payback for going through my notebooks! _Tiana couldn't help giggling a little bit as she imagined the possibilities.

When she looked back up again, Reala's face was right in front of her, scrunched so much in annoyanace that if he'd had any veins, they would've been popping up on his forehead. "What...are you..._doing_?!"

"Er...thinking," Tiana awkwardly replied, while her mind said, _Why, I was picturing you snuggling a bunch of little kittens! _

"I said let's go!"

"Yeah, let's go." Tiana turned back towards the endless sea in front of them. "Um...why aren't we going?"

Reala finally thrust his hands out at her. "You have to Dualize with me first, you idiot! I can't do it while I'm transformed!"

"Oh!" Tiana willingly stepped closer and pressed her hands to his. _That's right. If we have to go in the water, he'll turn into a dolphin, and then what would I do? Grab his flippers? That would actually be kind of cute..._

"Shut your mind hole."

"Awwww, but you make such a cute little dolphin!"

"Call me cute one more time, and I'll be using all these nice sharp teeth to take your arm off."

"Ah, but we're Dualized now, so you can't hurt me unless you hurt yourself!"

"Yes, but I _do _have the power to un-Dualize you again, so you'd just better watch it."

Tiana pulled herself away from the argument as their merge solidified. All of a sudden, she felt herself falling...then something odd...and then...something really strange and indescribable. Parts of her body felt...different.

She opened her mouth and found that she couldn't breathe. Her arms wouldn't bend up. And her legs were...nonexistent. She tried to move them and instead slapped them up and down. Her body moved slightly forward. _It's a...tail..._ she realized, with pure amazement. _I have a tail. No...that's right, I'm in Reala's body...and his body just turned into a dolphin! _

Tiana easily whirled around in a circle in the water, getting a look at it. The dolphin shape was actually wearing a little red jacket over its flippers now. Its tail fin was white, its flukes red and decorated with two black strips. _His clothes morph with him? _That's _weird..._

Tiana maneuvared around in a circle again, getting used to the mechanics of her new flippers, and gently touched up towards the surface, taking a deep breath through the strange hole on the top of her head.

"Are you done messing around now?" Reala's annoyed voice asked her. "We've got a time limit, you know."

"We've got a _time limit_? Why have we got a time limit?"

Reala yanked her away from the surface, diving into the ocean with a powerful flick of his tail fin. "We've got to destroy the anchor points before they become too strong for our power to affect them. You still only have one ideya, after all."

_So what's...?_

"Anchor points are places the Voidables have created in order to secure a part of the world for themselves," Reala continued, interrupting her before she could finish the question. "They allow them to travel freely between here and the Void. I thought I explained that to you already."

"No. No, you only said that there were lots of Voidables here. You never said anything about the anchor points."

Reala gritted his sharp dolphin teeth and sped into a brief drill dash. Tiana pushed her own body into the spinning position again, combining their efforts. Now that she knew there was time limit, the danger was more immediate. _What happens if we fail? _She asked herself. _Oh God, what's going to happen if we don't make it in time?!_ Reala didn't answer that.

A huge dark shadow was approaching in front of them...and all of a sudden, Tiana could see several small, yellow, goopy balls, arranged in a series of circles. Reala automatially aimed himself upwards towards them, and she simply followed. They did look kind of big enough to swim through...

Sure enough, they swam quickly through the series of angled rings, and Tiana felt a small tingle of energy coursing through her. The number five flashed in her mind for an instant before disappearing again. _Five? Oh, right, we went through five. _

Reala pushed them into another drill dash, a sheet of bubbles spraying out from that spot and trailing behind them, and Tiana immediately felt that new energy draining from her body. _Oh, I get it now. Those rings help us recover from the drill dash...and I guess going through more at once gives us more power. They'll help us get to the anchor point in time! _

Reala remained suspiciously silent and fell into his usual, smooth glide through the water.

A mysterious feeling welled up within Tiana's body...calling to her...urging her to open her eyes. As usual, she'd closed them during the drill dash to prevent herself from getting dizzy. But now...there was something she needed to see.

She did it slowly and carefully. For some reason, she had a sense that what she was about to lay eyes on wasn't something you saw every day on the ride home from school. And she was definitely right about that. A little shiver of pure, deep, wondrous amazement swelled through her heart. How...? She'd seen scenes like this all her life--on the backgrounds of magazine ads, on computer wallpaper, on jigsaw puzzles...on the levels of some of her own video games. But this was different...this was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life.

The pure, clear blue water spread out above them...and below...was the Great Barrier Reef. The sculpted edges of coral, the soft tentacles of anemones, and the delicate bumps of shells all mixed together in a harmony of soft colors, every hue of the rainbow. Little shocks of blue or yellow darted across her field of vision--tropical fish. Lazy jellyfish pulsed along after them, as well as long, twisting eels, smoothly gliding rays, scuttling crabs, and all kinds of creatures, big and small, that she couldn't yet identify. The entire colorful, nuanced reef was teeming with life...it was almost as if it pulsed together...like it had a heart, a soul of its own. It was alive, in a brilliant spark of this miraculous force. No other picture on the face of the earth could compare with it. It was filled with the spirit of life itself. A living masterpiece.

Tiana was simply breathless. Even as she felt her body passively rushing and swerving through the water, her wide eyes remained fixed on the pure beauty surrounding her.

She didn't even hear Reala's amused voice echoing in her mind. _This reminds me of Aqua Garden._ Hmm...what had happened there, again? Oh, yes, NiGHTS had been screaming at him and trying to tear at his face. _Come to think of it, he was probably trying to tear my mask off... Ah, but then, I threw him into his cage and taunted him about being so violent. And slamming him against the doorway... Good times, good times..._

Reala tried to counteract the terrible amount of joy and wonderment swelling up within him from Tiana's soul. It was making him feel awkward. Now if only they had some... Aha! "Hey, you! I think now might be a good time to start paying attention!"

_H-Huh? Pay attention? _Tiana peeled her eyes away from her wondrous surroundings for a moment to glance in front of her--and just barely had enough time to follow Reala up away from a large, wispy black ball, covered in short, pointy spikes. _Augh! The Voidables!_ she suddenly remembered, as she plunged and looped through another series of rings, rimming one tall, purple piece of coral. She could almost feel Reala's held-in sigh. "Give me a break--I was distracted," she replied. "But I promise, I'll pay attention now!"

"You had better," he said, through his clenched snout. "Because we're getting closer to the anchor point now, and more and more Voidables are going to be showing up. If you're not ready for it, I'll have to drag you out of the way, and depending on the strength needed, I might tear you out of Dualization."

Tiana frowned. _Like when I almost slammed into that tree._

"Exactly."

_Okay..._ Though the sense of awe never left Tiana's heart, she concentrated all of her mind on the oncoming strings of yellow rings and black splotches of Voidables. _Let's do this_. As she felt her aquatic body accelerating, spinning out of reach of a few pipe-Voidables, she felt a hint of that secure feeling again. As long as her life remained here, merged with Reala's body, she would be safe from any physical damage. And all she needed to do was to get to the anchor point in time! She wasn't really sure why it mattered...but she'd seen the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef for herself...and it would be a bit of a shame if the Voidables succeeded in conquering it. She actually cared about what might happen to it. Just a little bit. Besides, if she didn't comply, Reala would probably kill her. Imagine ever feeling safe with _him_!

Numbers flashed rapidly through her mind as they spun through various series of rings together. She nearly screamed as Reala's twirling dolphin nose slammed straight into a pipe Voidable...but it only forced the Voidable into a little black ball which then went bouncing harmlessly off into the distance. "Yeah, that's another way of defeating them," he gruffly answered the question beginning to form in her mind. "We're doing the same thing to the anchor point just ahead."

_Ah! _Tiana focused all of her attention in front of her. Sure enough, just after the next group of rings, she could see some kind of giant, black, smoky ball growing and taking shape in the middle of the ocean. There were no fish or other kinds of sea life around it at all, and even the coral below it seemed to be withering and dying. They had to destroy it right now!

Tiana pushed herself into another paraloop, through a succession of half-rings arranged like some kind of atom, and then zoomed forward, straight towards it. Together, she and Reala shot off into a drill dash, remaining perfectly steady with the center of the anchor point, where the blow would be most effective.

The blast echoed through the ocean as they slammed full-force into its very core and it instantly burst apart, its black material liquefying and fading away in curls of wispy smoke.

Reala immediately shot off once it broke apart, though Tiana turned to look back at the scene for a moment. With her spirit, she could look in any direction, regardless of where Reala's eyes were pointing. And she could see that, although that section of the reef didn't suddenly spring back to life, some of the sea creatures were swimming a little closer to it now. Eventually, it would be repaired, and Tiana felt an oddly settled sense of accomplishment.

"That was _nothing_!" Reala snapped at her again to pay attention. "There are still two more left, and if you mess up on those, none of it will matter at all!"

_Way to take the pressure off..._ Tiana took a deep breath as her smooth back momentarily brushed the surface before spiraling back down into the depths. _Okay, two more. Here we go. _

The whole experience flew by as if it wasn't even real. The numbers flashed by her mind, as the rings' goopy yellow balls flashed by her body. She went up and down all over the place, in series of circles, both horizontally and vertically. All the while, the beautiful undersea world surrounded her at every turn.

She couldn't help but gasp a little when Reala suddenly yanked her downwards, into a long underwater cave, colorful seaweed hanging from the ceiling like a veil. She'd always known that these sorts of things existed...but to actually _see_ them here, existing, was an entirely different and eye-opening experience.

Once they emerged from the watery cavern, they maneuvered through a minefield of spiked-ball Voidables, which, as Tiana accidentally found out, couldn't be touched. She had Reala barking in her ears for the next thirty seconds about how it should have been completely obvious that they wouldn't be able to touch them, since they had spikes, and that someone with an Ideya of Intelligence like her should definitely have been able to figure that out.

"Chill out," she told him. "All it did was waste five seconds."

"Oh, sure. Just because _you_ can't feel anything. It's perfectly fine to ram _me_ into a big, pointy ball. It's not like that might actually _hurt_... Of course not. Abuse the dolphin all you want."

Tiana mentally groaned.

A few more pipe Voidables extended pieces on the ends of themselves, trying to smack them, but they cleverly slammed into their middle sections with a drill dash, eliminating them in one hit. A few large, cylindrical Voidables rolled down from the surface at them, but they managed to twist out of the way, slamming straight into the second anchor point in the process and thereby destroying them.

They began to fall into the same magical pattern once again, and Tiana let her mind wander, watching the wonderfully calming scenery. When the flashing ring numbers suddenly stopped, she turned her mind back towards where they were actually going...and her eyes widened.

A gigantic, smooth, grayish splotch was growing and emerging out of the middle of the ocean. It couldn't be a Voidable--its edges were too defined. And it was getting closer.

_It's...it's a rock! _she realized. _There's a giant rock! It's sticking out of the water! We've got to go around it!_

But Reala didn't seem to be listening to her. He barreled straight ahead towards its center, even picking up speed in the process.

"Hey!" She yelled in at him. "It's a rock! What are you doing?! We're going to crash straight into it!! And we'll come un-Dualized!! " _Is...is he trying to break through it?! That's impossible!! He'll have a concussion!! _Tiana was really beginning to panic now. For the first time, she was the one trying to wrench _him_ in a different direction, and she could actually feel the hard, stubborn resistence that he was putting up. _OhmyGod...ohmyGod, we're gonna crash...!!_

Just as Tiana closed her eyes and prepared for the painful impact, Reala turned them upwards, a mere foot away from the rock. With all of his strength, he shot up through the water, breaking through the surface and into the air in a brilliant splash of sparkling aqua drops and a spray of bright white sparkles.

_Ahhhh! _Tiana took a deep breath of the fresh, clean, cool air...and burst into laughter. She stretched out her arms as she rocketed up through the falling droplets, an overwhelming sense of pure exhilaration coming over her. It was that similar warm, tickling sensation, coming from somewhere close to her chest...but now it was ten times stronger. She couldn't help but laugh with it--it just felt so...joyous!

The excited, bubbling sensation only intesified, as she felt her body suddenly turning flips and half-cartwheels as it reeled through the air. At last, it shot upwards in a quick drill dash and hung just above the water for a moment, now on the other side of the rock formation. The feeling began to fade out, and Tiana's insane laughter came to a slow stop. _...What was all that about?_

"Ahem," Reala's voice coughed out, as he turned downwards, plunging himself back below the water and morphing back into a dolphin again. "That's enough of that."

_Enough of _what_?!_ Tiana wondered. But now wasn't the time to press the issue. They only had fifty seconds left in which to destroy the final anchor point.

A few more of those big barell-like Voidables were floating near the surface, bobbing up and down with the waves. They battered one away into a second, and they both exploded, leaving clouds of puffy black smoke behind. Tiana almost choked as they swam straight through the middle of it, racking up more ring-numbers.

At last, the big, wispy ball of blackness began to appear, just over a green ledge coated with seaweed and coral. Thankfully, they still had plenty of power...and made a spinning dash straight over the ledge, down into the little nook and breaking through the center of the ball.

"Ha!" Tiana cried, as the smoke fluffed back out and diffused into the water. "I did it! See? That wasn't so hard."

"My God, you're awful at this," Reala's cold voice replied. "Out of all those chances, you only got up to twenty links. You must've missed about half of those rings."

"Well, excuse me! It's the first time I've had to go through rings like that!"

"I bet I would've gotten all of them in one shot if I didn't have your dumb soul in my body."

"Oh, sure, blame it on me. You were the one doing most of the swimming."

Reala fell silent after that, and so Tiana focused along with him. It was completely unlike him to drop a good argument like that. Something was happening.

"Here it comes," he said, his voice low and hushed.

_What?_ Tiana wondered. _What is he talking about? Here what comes...? _

A jolt of panic shot into her heart just then, as the water surrounding her began to rumble and quiver. _What is this?! What's going on?!_

Reala frowned in consideration and moved upwards, poking his body up out of the water and transforming back, though his eyes still remained fixed on the spot below. Tiana just gave up--she wasn't going to get an answer out of him, so she might as well just wait and see.

At last, the quivering was fading out...and something suddenly burst out of the water in front of them, flailing in the air, dangerously. A long, black tentacle, ending in a round, sticky suction pad.

"...A giant octopus?!" Tiana cried. "You never told me there was going to be a giant octopus!!"

"It's not a giant octopus!" Reala snapped back at her. "Look!"

Tiana stared down into the swelling water below her and tried to make out the octopus creature in the midst of the hundreds of little white bubbles. Something wasn't quite right about that tentacle...and as more and more of the creature began to emerge, she noticed why. More "tentacles" stuck up in a circular pattern...but there were smaller ones connecting them together in some kind of webbed pattern. The fiber of the long strands seemed kind of...frayed.

_A...net?!_ Tiana stared incredulously at the giant black living net bubbling up out of the water below them. _How the...?! It's alive...? Well...I suppose if pipes and leaves and stuff can be alive, then this net thing can be too. It's got to be another Voidable. _

"Yes. A second-level Voidable," Reala consented.

"A _second_-level Voidable? What happens when we run into a _first_-level Voidable?"

No answer. That either meant he was too annoyed or distracted to bother trying to explain, or...he actually didn't know. Either way, the silence was definitely unnerving.

The giant net-Voidable then lashed out at them with one tentacle-rope string and he yanked her out of the way just in time. "Typicaste," he growled as he swung back up to glare down at it.

"What?" Tiana asked.

"That's its name."

"It has a _name_?"

Typicaste swung at them again with its rope-arms, and they dodged together this time. "It doesn't matter if it has a name or not!" Reala snapped. "We've got to get rid of it--now!"

"Okay, okay..." Tiana focused down onto the circular, wavering ends of the ropes. "Are we supposed to do something with those sticky ends?"

Reala nodded, grimly. "Yes. Perhaps if we can stick them all together, we can get it into one knot, small enough to paraloop."

They zoomed to the side, grabbing onto the sticky end of the nearest rope before it had the chance to swipe at them. Together, the two of them flew into a drill dash, smashing it into a second sticky end. The two ends stuck firmly together, even as Typicaste shuddered and tried to separate them. Tiana smiled. "Hey! It worked!"

"Now we've got to stick the _rest _together!" Reala reminded her. "There's got to be at least six others left!"

Thankfully, the giant net Voidable was still too busy trying to separate its first two rope-tentacles to notice them grabbing a third and adding it to the pile. They managed to stick two more together after that, though Typicaste landed a hit on them as they were attempting to drag the two attached ropes over to the other three.

"Don't try to do two at once like that!" Reala yelled at Tiana. "It's going to slow us down!" He smashed the ropes together, creating a bigger ball of five.

"But...that might take too long..." Tiana worried. "There's still three left, and then, we need to paraloop it too..."

"There's plenty of time!" Reala cried, as he flew through a series of three green rings in the air that Tiana hadn't actually noticed before. "Just concentrate!"

Tiana closed her eyes and pushed all of her efforts into the next drill dash. They whirled downwards, avoiding another swipe, and grabbed the next rope once it retreated. Two seconds later, they were sticking it onto the accumulation with the others.

"See how fast that was?!" Reala barked. "We'll do the same for the last two!"

And they did. Flying in a circle around Typicaste's body, they dodged, then grabbed onto the last two rope's ends, flying them back over to the sticky glob.

"What now?!" Tiana cried, staring at all the rope-tentacles, stuck together at the tips. Typicaste shuddered and made a strange grunting noise as it yanked desperately, trying to pull its arms apart..

"Stick it to the body!" Reala commanded, and Tiana instantly saw what he meant. The net-creature had a tiny black ball of a body at its center, almost like a spider...and even if the body itself wasn't sticky, the concentration of sticky ends in the rope-glob would surely be enough.

They got into position on the other end of it and waited. Sure enough, the Voidable eventually got fed up and used its stuck-together tentacles to launch itself completely out of the water. And the instant it did, Reala and Tiana shot into the fastest drill dash they could muster together, grabbing the blob of eight sticky tentacles...and slamming them straight onto the creature's little black body.

Typicaste gave off a little shriek of pain and curled up in midair, becoming nothing but a tightly tangled knot of black rope.

"_Now_!" Reala yelled, and for the first time, Tiana knew exactly what he was talking about. She pushed her body forward, zooming downwards along with him, the fresh ocean air rushing around her. Then up...and _around_!

A loud, terrible screech burst out of the center of the creature as the newly formed hole sucked it in, transporting it back to the Void, from which it now would never be able to return.

Tiana felt herself hanging limply in the air as she looked down on the ball of darkness shrinking and fading out of existence. It was...gone. At last, it was gone. They'd done it. She'd done it. It was all over now. The lively, pristine beauty of the Great Barrier Reef was protected. It felt...safe now.

Tiana closed her eyes as the last of the black Voidable haze was fading away. It was comfortable here...and softly, she began to feel as if she was wrapped in a warm, protective blanket. She was moving, slowly...as if someone was carrying her...and going somewhere that she knew she needed to go. She didn't want to even try to open her eyes. It just felt...so calm and settled.

_Ahhh..._ There was another warm feeling within her, but instead of bubbling excitement, this one was...gentle. Tiana had never felt so...at peace before in her life.

Again, she felt something gently pushing at the bottoms of her feet...and the warm, caressing breeze. It was time now.

Carefully, she let her eyelids slide up...and found herself once again gazing in wonderment over the expanse of the beautiful, sparkling sea. "The reef..." she whispered. But...something was different about it.

She was standing on the edge of a flat rock, a long wooden dock extending in the water from the edge of the shore. "N-No..." A dim recognition quivered through Tiana's heart. But that was impossible. This couldn't really be... _No, it is. I'm sure it is. It's so...clean and pure..._ "This is..." her voice wavered in complete awe and disbelief. "This is Gullport Harbor."

She looked down, and her brown eyes only widened. She raised her arms...to get a better look at the mysterious white light emanating up from her palms. _What...? What is...? Why is...? _

Then, she noticed a pale blue hand carefully reaching out for it. For a moment, her vision was completely blinded as the white light intensified and filled every corner of the harbor. Once it had faded off, Tiana softly opened her eyes once again.

There was Reala, hanging in the air in front of her...with a brilliant white globe hovering above his right hand. Inside, she could see some kind of delicate pointed crystal extending its arms out in all directions from the center, like a star. Tiana couldn't take her eyes off it. Something about it was..._calling_ to her. She just wanted to run towadrs it and wrestle it out of his hand...though she couldn't really understand why. It _was_ pretty...

"Ideya of Purity," Reala at last spoke, his gaze also fixed on the globe's center, though with none of the raging emotions Tiana was feeling. "It makes sense." He glanced back up into Tiana's strangely tightened, emotional face for a moment...and then turned back to the depths of the ideya within his grasp.

Tiana forced her eyes away for a moment to look into Reala's face. Something was tugging oddly at the edges of his mouth, and a cold sensation of dread was beginning to creep into her heart.

At last, he extended his arm, allowing the ideya to slip off the end of his hand and fade, gently into Tiana's chest, enveloping her whole neck in a warm white glow. She couldn't help but gasp as she felt that warm, peaceful feeling filling her soul once again. _That_ was where it came from. Gently, she took it in, accepting it...and waiting as it assimilated itself with her heart. She took a deep breath, settling herself again and feeling the peacefulness fade out again...for now. She looked out again across the expanse of her neighborhood harbor...and her mouth fell open.

"What?!" There were the old, dirty, rusted boats, the murky swills of chemical water, and the gray, dull sky once again. "I...b-but I... Just a few minutes ago, it was all clean and blue and empty... Was...was that just a mirage or something? Didn't we save it?!"

"We can't fix all of this realm's problems," Reala grimly replied, turning his back to her. "We can help things, of course, and keep these things from happening, but for other spots, it is already too late. But as long as you have that Ideya of Purity, you'll be able to see the purity that it once was. And maybe you'll think a little differently about it now, won't you?"

Tiana's gaze slipped down towards the large rock that she was standing on. _Well...yes. Now that I've seen that, it's... It's not the harbor's fault it's like this. I bet it used to be fun to come swim here on sunny days..._

Reala flew back towards the sidewalk, still avoiding her gaze.

Tiana stepped up beside him, just a bit nervous. "Er..." she spoke up, her voice soft and unsure. "...For a moment there, I almost thought you weren't going to give it back to me."

Suddenly and unexpectedly, Reala reached over and gave her a rough tussle on the head, messing her already unkempt hair. "All in your head--all in your head," he announced. "C'mon, let's get out of this place."

_What in the world was _that_ for? _Tiana wondered as she ran down the sidewalk after him and tried to flatten her hair. _Now that just makes me even more suspicious! _

"And, hey, congratulations!" Reala called, turning around to face her as he continued flying back towards her house. "You're not so much of a completely hopeless amateur anymore!"

"Wow," Tiana replied, frowning. "Thank you for that glowing compliment."

"You're welcome."

_Urgh..._ Tiana realized as they rounded a corner. _Well...I guess this means everything's back to normal now, huh?_

(-)

Complete, utter, stunned silence pervaded through the small, cluttered room, nothing but the gentle click of the door sliding into place behind Tiana's back. She fingered the material of her blue satin nightgown for a moment, just to stave off some of the disbelief. "I...I don't know how you did it..." she spoke up at last. "But whatever it was...it really worked."

Reala glanced up from his position, sitting in the middle of his cot and gave her an "I-told-you-so" look.

"She...she said she saw me this morning, and she was sure I'd gone to school today. I don't know how that's even possible."

"The world works in mysterious ways," Reala agreed. "So are you satisfied now?"

"Y-Yeah..." Tiana slid herself into bed, still a bit dazed by the whole experience of today. It was...amazing and simply unreal. Reala took off his jacket and began arranging the blanket on top of the cot while she set her alarm clock and settled into bed for the night. She turned over, facing the wall and closed her eyes, blocking it all out for now. "Good--er...see you tomorrow, then." Tiana just barely stopped herself from saying "good night" again and imagined the explosion of anger in her mind.

"Yes," was Reala's cold reply, and he too slipped down onto the pillow. He had a lot to think about tonight, and he couldn't help but be a little grateful that she had remembered not to use that annoying phrase. He closed his eyes to concentrate.

Today had certainly been a landmark--it was the first time he'd gone through a reality portal with an Explorer in a very, very long time...and especially had it turn out to be a successful trip. Tiana had been able to create her second ideya, though that was nothing compared with the three she still had left to produce. Though there was one thing about their experience which wouldn't stop bothering him...her statement about "first-level Voidables".

He'd been figuring everything out about the Voidables by simply comparing them with Nightmaren...but on this point, it was impossible. He and NiGHTS had been the "first-level Nightmaren". So, there really were no "first-level Nightmaren". Did that mean there were no "first-level Voidables" either?

_For some reason, I thought that there _were_... _Reala scowled with confusion. _Well, maybe they do have first-level Voidables, even though there are no first-level Nightmaren. Voidables and Nightmaren aren't exactly alike, even though they work similarly. _

He pulled the blanket further away from him as he arrived at another important point. _Come to think of it...who's the one controlling the Voidables? Is there a master of the Void, like Wizeman is the master of Nightmare? I think there is...but who is it? What does he look like? The name was... Hmm...master of the Void...creator of the Voidables... Ah, forget it, I can't remember. It's been even longer since I've seen _him_ than it has since I've had an Explorer. _

Reala searched deep within his mind and tried to remember his last Explorer...but that was even more impossible than picturing the master of the Void. That was...somehow even less accessible...

_Doodoodoodoodoo_-_doodoo..._

He gasped. Instantly shooting up on the cot, Reala slammed the window up and stuck his head out. It was nighttime, yes, and the moon was out...but there was nothing else. Nothing on top of the clock tower, nothing above the roofs of any of the houses in the neighborhood. That sound... He sword he'd heard... He closed his eyes for a moment and searched for the presence with his sensors. Nothing.

"What's the matter with _you_?" Tiana lifted her head from her pillow and stared at him. She hadn't been fully asleep yet, though the banging of the window would've woken her up anyway. Her watery eyes shined in the soft moonlight coming in from the open window.

"O-Oh, it's nothing." Reala pulled himself back in and closed the window firmly, a bit ashamed to be caught doing something so irrational. "I just thought I heard something, but it was nothing. Ignore it."

_He's acting weird lately..._ Tiana thought as she settled back into her bed.

Reala had to look out the window one more time, just to make sure, but he still didn't see any sign of it. _I just imagined it_, he decided, flopping back onto the cot and yanking the blanket over him, defiantly. _Probably because the moon just rose or something. Part of me automatically expects it. Igck...why would I do that?! It's just like what I said before... _And so, he tore away, plunging into the black dream-less world of his unconscious, forgetting the incident entirely.

(-)

That was it. She knew it for sure now. The entire world was spinning out of control. Tiana was sitting on her bed, against the wall, her green-socked feet flat in front of her, her knees up near her chest. Thank God it was a Friday.

All of the students at her school had gone insane--half of them were either out marching in front of the stairway, holding picket signs or on strike against using paper. Apparently, some Environmental Club had just discovered that the school didn't recycle...and that they had been purchasing their meat in the cafeteria from a dubious overseas company. There was a huge uproar about it. Even Stella was involved, and she'd been barking at Tiana not to use any of the papers they gave her in class all day. The whole thing was surreal. The principal was going to sit down and have a talk about how to resolve this issue, but for now, Bridgeside High School was a complete wreck.

Tiana was glad that she'd been forced to skip it yesterday. From what she'd heard, this was actually the second day of protests. Her mother usually had Friday afternoon off, but she'd gone in for another job interview. And to top it all off, Reala was currently flying around her bedroom and cleaning like a madman...er...jester thing.

He'd said that he couldn't stand the "utter chaos and disorder" anymore, and proceeded to organize her entire book and video game collection, along with all of her papers. He'd even vacuumed the rug and dusted the shelves. It was almost like her mother when she was on a cleaning rampage--except her mother didn't fly and toss insults at her every ten seconds.

"It's because of the Voidables," Reala explained as he wiped down her desk with a dishrag. "We defeated all the Voidables at your school, so there's going to be some changes around there now."

"Well, what if I don't _like _those changes?!" Tiana cried, nearly knocking over one of the Awakers that were nestled on her bed next to her. A few of the round, shiny white creatures had stayed behind after Reala's lyre-playing session that morning and they'd been hanging around all day. It was kind of creeping her out...but at least their "bloop-bloop" noises were somewhat soothing, and they actually made good pillows. "I don't know what's worse--having everyone staring at me, or having everyone walking around with picket signs and chanting!"

"Too bad," Reala snapped at her again as he hung the dishrag on the end of her bed and moved back to the bookcase. "You're going to have to deal with it. At least until the next portal appears."

"And how long will that be?"

"How should I know? You're the one who causes them to appear--it could be tomorrow, or it could be a month from now. It all depends on your development! If I could make them appear myself, we'd be done with this whole idiotic quest already!"

_Bloop-bloop, bloop-bloop?_, went the second Awaker, confusedly.

_Bloopy bloop_, the third answered.

_Ba-loop?!_

Tiana sighed. "So I'm going to have to put up with you cleaning my room like this all the time? Now I'm not going to know where anything is!"

Reala ground his teeth in frustration. "Why would you not know where anything is?! Your clothes are in the closet, your books are in the bookcase, your shoes are under the bed, your plastic containers are on the plastic wrack--it makes perfect sense!"

"Usually my books are under the bed. My games are in the bookcase."

"A bookcase is for storing _books_! Why on earth would you ever use it for anything else?!"

The Awakers suddenly roused themselves and shot off through the open window, in a panic. Tiana glanced after them in confusion. _Why did they just run off like their head fins were on fire? Heh...maybe they're scared of Reala when he gets mad. They're only used to hearing him play the lyre..._

For a moment, she thought she heard an odd thumping noise. She glanced over at Reala to see if he'd noticed, but he was too busy grumbling to himself while transporting her game disks to the CD rack on the end of her desk.

"Don't know why...idiotic humans...so many complications...makes no sense...it's their own fault..."

"Are you calling me an idiot again?"

"No, I called the entire human race idiots. I'm not sure if you qualify under that category."

"Well, now you just called me an alien!"

"I didn't say you were an alien, I just said that--" When Reala lifted his head from her bookcase again, he suddenly choked on his words, his light blue eyes bulging all the way open. His lips parted slightly in shock...and even dread.

Instantly, Tiana was on her guard as well. She'd never seen him make a face like _that_ before.

"No..." he spoke, softly. "It can't be..."

_Can't be what?!_

"REEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!"

"_Aaaaaugh_!!"

Tiana leaped to her feet as a large streak of something purple suddenly burst into her room, violently tackling Reala to the floor.

"_OhmygoshohmygoshitsReeitsreallyReeIfoundyouIfoundyouIfoundyou_!!"

"_Get off me_!!"

Clutching one hand to her face, Tiana carefully peeked down at the mess of limbs on the floor...to see Reala screaming and trying to pry another purple jester-creature off him. Her eyes also widened in amazement. Was this...? But how...? And why...? What was going on here?

At last, he finally managed to pull the purple creature's arms away from his chest and began to sit up a little, though the creature was still grinning like a maniac. For a moment, their eyes met each other...and Reala pulled away, holding his head in his hands and groaned, loudly.

"Darn it..." he spoke up, in pure exasperated annoyance. He could see his future ahead of him, and already he knew some of the things that were bound to happen now. Whatever small amount of peace and quiet he'd been able to get while Tiana was at school had just gone straight down the tubes. There was nowhere to hide now.

"_NiGHTS_..."


	5. The Reunion

Here's another nice short one for you. Seriously, I tried to make it shorter! I did! It never works...

Um...I never mentioned this in the beginning, but...it's going to be kind of NxRish. Kind of. It's not romance, and they're not going to be a "couple", but...there's just a lot of cuteness going on between them in this chapter. Their relationship will be examined in greater detail in the coming chapters. Well...I warned you that there was going to be fluffiness. I'm not called EternalFluffy for nothing. (Though actually, that's not where the name came from.) And clean your mind about the end of this chapter! It's _completely_ innocent.

I had some writer's block in the middle of this chapter because I got discouraged. But it's all gone now, because...my Japanese PS2 and NiD finally came in the mail! I've been playing it like mad. It's been a real inspiration boost, and it's really going to help with the "dream sequences". Jackle and Puffy are fun. I love Soft Museum. And I can't stand Clawz. That will be all.

I feel like this chapter is just a big hodgepodge of random occurances, but it's all setting up for things to come. And Tiana is kind of taking a backseat to the jester brothers right now. But she'll be much more important next chapter.

And I have no idea when that will be, because I haven't started it yet!

NiGHTS, Reala, exc. belong to Sonic Team. I own Tiana, her mom, and...that's all this time.

(-)

Chapter 5: The Reunion

"Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, _yaaaaaay_!!" The purple creature shrieked, throwing itself around Reala's shoulders again. "I can believe it! It's you! You're here! You're back! _I'm so happy_!!"

"Well, good for you," Reala replied, gruffly shoving it off again. "You saw me. Now go away."

"Aw, Ree, you're always like that! I love it! I know it's you for sure now!!"

Reala scowled back, deciding to test out just how far this was going to go. "...I hate your guts."

"I know!!"

"You're an ugly, butt-faced baboon."

"Don't I know it!!"

"And you smell like a ton of month-old fish."

"I _love_ fish!!"

Reala grinned. "This is actually kind of fun..."

"Er...um..." Tiana's soft voice came out, a bit uneasy at interrupting this unusual family reunion. "...I thought you said you had a brother."

"He _is _my brother." "I _am _his brother!!" The two of them got to their feet, the purple creature twirling around to face her, ecstatically. Its voice was so high-pitched and its color scheme was so full of pink and purple that Tiana had automatically thought it was a girl.

It did resemble Reala a lot. It had the same long, thin body, boots, jacket, and tights, and the same floating head with the horns, except everything was all colored in purple and pink, with a few yellow strips here and there. It even had a big diamond-shaped crystal in the center of its chest, though this one was red. Its horn-things were a little shorter and pointed straight down instead of curling in like Reala's did, and colored purple with darker purple stripes. Its face was much more warm and inviting--a human flesh color, and without those menacing black streaks through its eyes, or the colored lips. Its eyes were a deep and glowing indigo.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" it cried in its high, chirping voice once it laid eyes on Tiana. "I didn't mean to overlook you! My name is NiGHTS, the guardian of the Dreaming World! I'm very, very, _very_ pleased to meet you!!" NiGHTS bent down into a bow, crossing one hand over his chest.

He popped back up, pressing his gloved hands to his knees and staring down into Tiana's eyes, as if appraising her, pure awe and excitement in his face. "So this means you're his Explorer, right?! Ohmygosh, he's got an Explorer already!! Ree hasn't had an Explorer in a really, really, really long time, you know. Wow, you must have the patience of a _boulder _to put up with _him _for so long!"

"_Hey_! Shut your mouth!" Reala yanked NiGHTS back away from her by the sensors, roughly. "What did you come here for anyway--just to torment us?"

"I _had _to come see you, Ree!" NiGHTS cried, once again flinging his arms around his waist with excitement. "After I came back and I heard from Owl that you'd got your soul and everything, I had to come say hi!! I thought I'd never get to see you like this again!!"

Though Reala was still irked by the hugging, he was suddenly too confused to bother pushing him off again. "Wait a minute...my _soul_?"

"Yeah!" NiGHTS cried, pulling a little bit away to tap the blue crystal on his chest with one finger. "That's your soul! You didn't know that? You got your memories back after you put it on, didn't you? I'm sorry I wasn't there to explain anything..."

Reala shivered a little at the contact. _My soul? I figured it was just life support. If that's my soul, how come I don't have _all _of my memories back yet? And how come I feel the same? I don't feel like a different person. If I have a different soul, then shouldn't I feel different? _He clenched his teeth together, resignedly. _As much as I can't stand NiGHTS...he _will _have a lot of the answers to the questions I have right now. In fact, I kind of, almost...hoped to meet him again...to talk to him about it. _He berated himself for feeling that way, but after all, he _was _just looking for information. It wasn't really NiGHTS he'd been hoping to see. Not really...

"But I never thought you'd have come so far already!" NiGHTS gushed as he snuggled up to him. "You got an Explorer, and you're fighting your monster creatures, and my gosh, _look at you_!! You've got your jacket, and your sleeves, and goodness, you lost a lot of weight! You feel so scrawny! You're, like, the same size as I am now!!"

Tiana gulped. _Uh oh. Not good. He just used the "s" word..._

_Slam!! _

"Owwwwies..."

Reala had punched NiGHTS downwards into the floor with as much strength as he could muster. "I'm _not _weak!" he spat, one shaking fist still clenched in front of his chest. "It doesn't matter what I _look_ like--I'm still stronger than _you_ are!"

NiGHTS looked back up at him, smiling and clutching the center of his head. "I didn't say you were weak! I didn't mean that! You look _wonderful_! I bet you can fly a lot faster like that! Cause, you know, you were real darn slow the last time we-- _Augh, I'm sorry_!!" NiGHTS scrambled to his feet to get out of the way as Reala swung at him again. "Really, I meant it all as the sincerest compliments!"

Tiana watched the two brothers battling it out in the middle of her room with an exasperated gaze. _Well, it looks like I was wrong about his brother. They're complete opposites! Though now I can see why he didn't want to talk about him... _"Um..." She felt extremely awkward and out of place all of a sudden, even though this was her own bedroom. Whatever this was, she wasn't a part of it, and she never would be. Though she didn't necessarily _want _to be.

At the sound of her voice, NiGHTS stuck his head out from behind the light on her ceiling, and Reala froze in the middle of a flying pounce. "Oh, my goodness! We're forgetting the poor girl! She must be freaking out, watching us fight like this!" NiGHTS swooped back down in front of her, while Reala gently lowered behind him, clenching his teeth and his hands in frustration. "Um...what's your name, anyway?" the purple creature asked her, a bit embarrassed for not thinking to ask earlier.

"Tiana," she replied, the awkward feelings beginning to slip into her voice. "Tiana Weaver."

"Tiana?" NiGHTS repeated. "Oh, wow! Your names are almost the same! Tee-ah-nah...Ree-ah-lah... You guys must have an extra special connection then!"

"That does not sound alike at _all_," Reala argued, crossing his arms again. "If you're implying what I think you're implying, then..."

"Dee-nye-ahl!"

"Grrragh, I'm gonna _kill you_!"

"Now, now," NiGHTS warned, patting Tiana on the head. "Not in front of the children."

She glared up at him. "I'm a teenager."

"Well, teenager, then." NiGHTS bent down a bit again to get a look at her. "Ree always did like them kind of older... Though...maybe with Explorers, they have to be older, like my Dreamers are always young. I wouldn't be able to work with a Dreamer your age... They're already too far gone, just throwing their dreams away..." He sighed.

Reala slowly unwound his arms again as he listened to these speculations with composed interest. "...Yes," he realized. "A child Explorer would throw away the world. They wouldn't care...they wouldn't be able to understand...they wouldn't be able to...handle it...and accept it."

NiGHTS turned around towards him and smiled, softly. "But I think you'll do a good job with this one, I really do. She's got two ideya already."

"Actually, she made that second one herself," Reala explained, "We just went through her first reality."

NiGHTS's face lit up. "_Really_?! _Already_?! I can't believe it! I never even thought you'd have an Explorer, much less have completed a reality already! Take back what I said, then--you're gonna do an awesome, super, mega-_fantastic _job!!"

"Nothing to it." Reala couldn't help feeling somewhat proud of himself. He placed his hands on his hips and began to float up a little bit above the floor. "It all just comes naturally."

Tiana continued scowling at the two of them. _When are they going to stop talking as if I'm not even here?! _"Hey..." she defiantly spoke up. "What about _me_?"

"You're doing an awesome, super, mega-fantastic job, too!!" NiGHTS spun around, crushing her into a hug and beaming like he'd just won some kind of award.

_On second thought...maybe I don't want them to. _"Mmmfff..."

"Ah, whoops! I'm just a little excitable now..." NiGHTS released her again, scratching the end of his left sensor nervously. "Teeheeheeheeheeheehee!"

"Um...are you going to be staying here now, too?" Tiana asked.

"Yes!" NiGHTS decided. "I shall! Just for you, I will! _Someone's _got to keep a leash on Ree, and I'll be here from now on to monitor your progress!"

"We were doing just _fine_ without you," Reala spoke up, glaring down at him. "In fact, I'd say you're not needed here at all! Go home!"

"Awwww, but I came all this way to find you...my legs are sore..."

"You _fly_, how can your legs be sore?!"

"Stretching them."

"Well, don't stretch them!"

"But it's not fun that way."

"Why should you care if it's fun or not, you were...!! Arrrgh, forget it--I give up."

"Victory!!"

"...I really do hate you, you know."

Tiana only groaned as she turned away from their arguing and headed back towards her closet. _So now Reala's brother NiGHTS is going to be staying here too?! Since when did my little apartment become a hotel for flying jester-creatures? There's nowhere for him to stay--I only have one spare cot. _

She pulled out a towel and turned back around for a second to get a look at them. NiGHTS was currently lying on the cot and pressing his face to the window, while Reala was holding a stack of her games and sitting on him.

"Mmmm...mmmwhat a mice viewww..."

"I'm glad you like it, cause you're not going anywhere for a _long_ time."

"Mmmot if I vopen it..."

"...Don't you _dare_!"

_Oh, God... _Tiana thought, as she turned away once again, clutching her towel to her chest. _There's two of them now..._

(-)

He'd never let anyone know it...but Reala was actually feeling a little strange. So much had happened in just the last few days. It was sort of unnerving. He hadn't gone through a reality portal or even morphed into dolphin form in a very long time, yet it all felt...completely natural. Watching Tiana producing the Ideya of Purity had almost brought a little bit more of his memories back to him. Well, it wasn't his memories exactly, but his connections. He'd instantly been able to feel his own connection to this realm when he'd first arrived...but now, it felt even deeper and more profound. He wasn't just interested in it because it belonged to him, like a plot of land or a kingdom...but because it was _his_. It was piece of his soul, his life--his entire being. He could feel it...almost speaking to him.

And thus, he'd made that odd speech to Tiana about the nature of this realm's problems. Where _had _that come from anyway? It was like he instinctually knew. He suddenly knew things that he didn't even know he knew. Wisdom from...a time before. It had still felt weird just handing the ideya back to her at first--he'd been doing the opposite for so long. But that too would hopefully get easier as time went on. And then there was that little..._setback_. But that didn't matter. Now, the most important issue was NiGHTS...

Reala fingered the blue jewel against his chest, uneasily, as he waited for him to get back from the kitchen. _So...this is my soul, huh?_ he thought again. _It seems really...fragile and inconvenient. And how come I can just take it off and hold it in my hands? It doesn't really make sense. "Ooh, look what I can do! I can hold my soul in my hands!" Yeah, right. Well, I guess it does explain why I can't breathe and start to fall unconscious if I try to leave it somewhere. But the same thing happened with the jewel on my armor, so... Was that my soul too? Or another part of my soul?_

"I'm baaaa-aack! Didja miss me?" NiGHTS finally popped back into Tiana's room, smiling like an airhead again. "I was only gone a few minutes, but I know how much you just can't _stand_ to be away from me! We haven't really seen each other in so long..."

Now was the perfect opportunity. The little brat had locked herself securely into the bathroom while she was taking a shower, so she wouldnn't be coming back here for at least twenty minutes. Now was the time, at last, for everything to be revealed.

"NiGHTS..." Reala's hand dropped down into his lap, where he was sitting on the edge of Tiana's bed, one leg crossed. He slowly lifted his head, his shining light blue eyes sliding up to meet his brother's deep blue ones. That terrible feeling of wisdom and connection intensified.

Those mysterious dark pools widened. "Really?! You really _did_ miss me?! Ahwww, you're such a sweetheart!"

Reala's eyes narrowed. "_NiGHTS_... It's time to be serious now."

NiGHTS pouted. "Ahhh...serious time, huh? I don't wanna have serious time..." He took a deep breath as Reala glared daggers into his face. "...Okay. Okay, I'm all set now." Carefully, he floated forward to the edge of the bed with an air of solemnity. "What do you want?"

"Sit," Reala coldly commanded, indicating the spot on the bed next to him. "We have a lot to talk about."

NiGHTS folded his long body over the mattress, tucking his overly large feet in front of him and leaning forward, closer to his spiritual brother. "...I knew we were going to have to do this sometime, but why so soon?"

"I want the answers from you _now_," Reala prodded him. "We can have happy joyful reunion celebration time later."

"Really?!" NiGHTS's head automatically perked up, his smile returning just a little bit. "Okay then, fire away!"

"I was being facetious..." Reala muttered. "But oh well..."

He took a deep breath of his own and turned to look directly into NiGHTS's face once again. That very familiar face... "I want you to tell me everything that happened...from before... Before I lost my memories..."

NiGHTS's body visibly clutched. His small, jeweled chest collapsed inwards. "W-Well...that would take all day!" his voice wavered out. "Isn't there anything more specific you want to know right now?"

_He's holding something back..._ Reala thought. _There's something he doesn't want to tell me. But I suppose it is true. I don't want that girl walking in on this conversation... _"Fine," he consented. "I suppose...I want to know more about this 'soul' business. I always assumed this crystal was just something to keep me alive. Wizeman's mask was what erased my memories..."

NiGHTS smiled a little, gently, and touched his own bright red crystal. "This is what the humans might call a 'heart'," he explained. "It contains your soul, your spirit, your essence of life. It's what makes you alive. But it's not your mind. Your mind is always the same, whether you're here or in Nightmare. That's why you're probably really surprised, since you don't feel like you're a different person."

Reala pressed his lips together, though it didn't surprise him that NiGHTS knew what he was feeling. He could almost feel what NiGHTS was feeling right now, too...a settled sense of pride, hope, and peace.

"You're right--the mask was what brainwashed you. But there was also the fact that your soul had been replaced."

_Replaced?_ Reala wondered. The image of the round, reddish jewel at the center of his armor flashed into his mind--and how it had suddenly exploded when he touched it while holding his crystal. _Was that some kind of fake soul?_

NiGHTS's knowing smile glowed back at him...warm, inviting, and accepting. "You're beginning to feel a little strange now, aren't you? You can feel like you're connected to this world somehow...your connection with me. Well, maybe you can't feel that yet... But that's all new to you. Before, you just felt more connected to Nightmare, and to Wizeman...though you don't feel at all close to them now."

_That's true..._ Reala reluctantly admitted to himself. _Wizeman is nothing to me now. He's just "that big, evil guy who used me against my will". Actually, I feel more anger towards him than anything else. But just a week ago, I would've willingly laid down my life for him. _

"That's because he forced a piece of his own soul into you. Just like a normal Nightmaren."

His eyes widened. _So _that's _what that was...?!_

"He was trying to do the same to me..." NiGHTS continued, turning his head down towards the covers of Tiana's bed. "That's what he had me locked up with the mask on for. He was trying to brainwash me and replace my soul, like he did with you. But it didn't really work as well..."

"Yeah," Reala insisted, his voice suddenly low and rough. "Why _didn't _it work on you?"

"...I'm not actually sure myself." NiGHTS gritted his teeth, desperately trying to quell some inner, hidden turbulence. "But, I was able to focus and hold onto my memories, even when the mask was on my face. I fought against it with everything I had. But anyway..."

Reala glanced down at him when he abruptly changed the subject. _Is he trying to hide something again? _

"Do you remember now?" NiGHTS gently asked, turning his warm face back up to meet his. "Do you remember...right before it happened?"

"I remember you...in one of Wizeman's hands, screaming at me to run away. And him putting the mask on you..."

NiGHTS nodded. "Yes. That's right. I kind of forced you to come visit the Dreaming World with me, and he showed up all of a sudden..."

"You can't make me like it," Reala suddenly spoke up. "It doesn't matter how fun you say it is--it's still the same to me."

NiGHTS smiled so brightly that he almost began to cry. Something about that sentence had sparked something deep within his crystal-soul, and it was almost glowing with satisfaction. "Yes. That's right. I can't... I... Let me tell you..."

(-)

_"So...here we are! Isn't it just awesome?!" NiGHTS twirled around in front of the Dream Fountain, the little yellow sparkles twisting over his slim purple body. "I'm really, really excited that you're here with me, Ree!" _

_"It's just a fountain." NiGHTS's eyes settled on the red-and-black creature casually seated on the edge. "I really don't see what's so 'awesome' about it." _

_Reala's body was just as slim, a blue crystal fastened to the center of his chest, between the flaps of his thin red jacket. His long legs bent over the edge of the fountain in their white tights. His jacket was closed tightly, completely covering his torso._

_NiGHTS smiled at him. "Well, this is only the Dream Gate, which connects the dreams together. Wait until we get to Nightopia! It'll really be fun then!" NiGHTS did a little dance in mid-air, floating up higher with excitement. _

_Reala just frowned and turned to gaze into the pool of water gathering at the fountain's base. "You can't make me like it," he warned. "It doesn't matter how fun you say it is--it's still the same to me." _

_"Ah, c'mon, at least you can try it out," NiGHTS lowered again, looking down at him. "I mean, I come to the Waking World all the time to visit you. Why can't you ever come visit me once in a while?" _

_"I don't like it," Reala muttered. "It's too...weird." _

_"Huh--well I could say the same thing about _your_ place. All those weird metal creatures they got now. And that "money" stuff..." NiGHTS whirled away from him again, gazing into the warped, black dimension surrounding the Dream Gate in a kind of dome. Nightmare... It had been getting stronger in the past eleven years. Maybe he'd been wrong. _

_"I just...wanted to share it with you..." NiGHTS spoke up at last, his voice soft and distant. "The Dreaming World is a part of me. You know that. I wanted you to see it again. I just wanted to..." _

_But he never got a chance to tell him what he had wanted to do. All of a sudden, something began to emerge out of the blackness above the large, circular building containing the Waking Door, a deep rumble shuddering through the entire island of the Dream Gate. _

_NiGHTS gasped, though Reala didn't seem to notice, still lost inside his own thoughts as he gazed down into the fountain. But he couldn't ignore the presence for much longer. _

_A gigantic, chrome head appeared, huge jagged spikes sticking out of it at all angles, and rimmed by a metallic halo...along with a long, flapping, deep blue robe...and six metallic hands with a flashing, iridescent eye at the center of each. Three crystals were arranged at the enormous figure's collar, as well as around the rim of the halo, in colors of yellow and aqua. _

_NiGHTS fell back in the creature's shadow as it rose higher and higher above the Waking Door, gaping in utter shock and horror. Reala finally wrenched himself away from the fountain and froze, his eyes wide and stricken on his blue face, his body completely paralyzed. _

_"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" The creature's deep, warped voice boomed across what seemed like the entire dimension. Though it had no face or mouth in sight, the voice emanated from the ends of its sharp spikes...and thus seemed even more powerful and commanding. _

_At last, NiGHTS's lips spat out the name. "Wizeman." _

_"How pleased I am to see that you remember me...NiGHTS...Reala..." Wizeman's voice shook the stone fixtures on the tops of the Dream Gate's pillars. "As you well know, you are the masters and guardians of the two realms of this universe. Whoever controls the powers of the guardians holds this universe in the palm of his hand. How convenient to find both of you together in one spot..." _

_"Don't you even _think_ of--_aaaaugh_!" One of Wizeman's hands suddenly swooped down from above the building, aiming straight for NiGHTS. He just barely had enough time to launch his body sideways into the air, leaving the hand to crash into a pillar diagonally behind him. _

_"You _will_ be mine this time!!" _

_"Augh!" NiGHTS reeled through the air, avoiding another hand's grasp, but while he was distracted, a third zoomed in from behind, its closed eye slamming against him, its giant, crushing fingers squeezing themselves around him. "_Nooooooo_!!" _

_"_NiGHTS_!!" At last, Reala snapped out of his awestruck trance, kicking off from the end of the fountain and zooming up through the air towards him, even as Wizeman began to retract his hand, bringing it closer to his nonexistent body. _

_NiGHTS writhed desperately within his confines, but the fingers were clenched too tightly to even allow him to lift his legs. A second hand whizzed over and the first opened just enough to allow it access. It clamped two enormous fingers around the tiny red crystal on NiGHTS's chest...and pulled on it with all its might. _

_"AAAAAAUGH!!" NiGHTS's earsplitting shrieks of agony shot through the darkness, and a sphere of red light erupted from the spot where the fingers were trying to pry the crystal off his chest. _

_"IT'S NO USE RESISTING!" _

_"_NiGHTS_!!" Reala cried out agian, swerving to the side as two other hands zoomed down for him. "_I'm coming_!!" _

_"NO!!" NiGHTS screeched, ripping and tearing desperately against the metal finger clenching over his chest. "NO, STOP IT!!" _

_At last, the hand broke away, hanging limp and paralyzed in the air above the building. NiGHTS panted, pressing a hand to the red crystal still attached to his chest. Thank goodness..._

_"Hang on!!" Reala's voice called out. "I'm coming to save you!!" _

_The fingers clenched tightly around NiGHTS again, squishing in on his soft body and binding his furious struggling. It was no use now. There was no way he would ever make a dent in Wizeman's thick, metal, ensnaring hands. He turned his head up...looking straight down into his brother's eyes, as his slim red body shot up through the cool air of the Dream Gate. This was their only chance now. "...REALA!" he scremed, with all that he had left in his body. "RUN! GET OUT OF HERE! DON'T LET HIM GET YOU, REALA!!" _

_SMACK! Before another word could be spoken, another of Wizeman's hands zoomed over, slamming angrily against NiGHTS's head. When it pulled away, the little purple creature was hanging limply against his fingers...and over his closed eyes was a round, golden, feathered mask. _

_"_NiGHTS_!!" Reala screamed. _

_"Ugggh..." NiGHTS's body slowly trembled to life again. He could feel it...something had appeared in the back of his mind, trying to suck away all of his previous memories, replacing them with Wizeman. Tenaciously, he clamped a firm hold over them, shoving the image of the Nightmare master out of his mind completely. The mask's magical waves poked painfully against his mind as he put up his resistance. But it didn't matter how much it hurt--he had to hang on! Slowly, he cracked his eyes open again, peering down over one of the giant fingers...just in time to see it. _

_Reala zoomed desperately towards him. He was almost close enough to reach him now...but just as he reached out his arms, one of Wizeman's hands shot downwards, meeting him in midair. And then...all in one instant, violent motion, his fingers clamped down around Reala's blue crystal...and ripped it straight off his chest. _

_His black lips fell open...his body shot backwards...and his shining, aqua eyes faded out...dull, blank, and lifeless. He began to fall out of the sky, plummeting head-first towards the ground. Wizeman's hand swooped down and caught him, his long limbs flopping over the eye in his palm like a ragdoll. Wizeman simply tossed away the crystal like a piece of useless garbage and focused down on his new captive. _

_"Noooo!!" NiGHTS screamed out as he watched the little blue jewel shooting dangerously towards the ground. "_Reala_!!" The searing hot pain in his mind didn't even matter now. Not when Reala had just lost his _soul_... But he couldn't do anything. He was too weakened by the crushing power of the mask to even attempt to struggle out of Wizeman's hand, and even if he had, the whole fight would have been useless. All he could do was lie here...and watch..._

_"Well, well," the deep, garbled tones of Wizeman's voice rumbled out. "I suppose one will have to suffice for now." Undoing Reala's jacket, he wrapped a thick black string around his chest, covering the diamond shapes. NiGHTS blinked desperately, watching in horror as Wizeman then began to fasten thick pieces of metal armor around Reala's body...on his feet, at his waist, over his hands, and around his forearms. He placed another one of those gold, feathered masks firmly over his cold and lifeless eyes. That was it. It was hopeless now. There was no coming back. A tear slipped out of NiGHTS's eye and down his cheek, underneath his mask. _

_Wizeman's hand quickly fastened something around Reala's back and hovered closely over him, its eye opening to look into his small, doll-like form. "That's it..." his voice slid out, low and commanding. "Come to me...my little puppet." And at last, it reached down again...pressing a breastplate firmly over his chest...encrusted with a large, round, red jewel, right in the center. _

_Immediately, spurts of black Nightmare energy began to crackle out of the center of that jewel, spreading out and absorbing into Reala's body. It shuddered and grew with the infusion of power, his legs slightly thicker and his upper arms rippling with muscles. At last, his eyes began to spark back into consciousness...though they shined with a different, malicious light. _

_"M-M...Master...?" his voice carefully wavered back out. After all, this was his moment of "creation", and he was learning to speak all over again. Just as carefully and gingerly, he pulled himself up...first sitting...then kneeling...then bowing. _

_NiGHTS couldn't watch this anymore. He clenched his eyes closed and concentrated all of his efforts into raging back at the attempts of the mask. He couldn't think about this. Not now. He'd lose the battle...if he allowed himself to feel the complete despair and sorrow creeping into his heart..._

_Reala's new eyes were focused upwards behind his mask, directly on the giant six-handed figure before him. He couldn't even see NiGHTS clutched within one of them. He didn't exist. There was only one thing that mattered to him now. _

_"Master...Wizeman..." _

(-)

"A-And...and so..." NiGHTS's long, thin body was trembling as it scrunched itself down, further against the covers. "So he told you all those awful lies...about us being Nightmaren, and me leaving you. He thought he could...use you to get to me. I held on to that mask, hoping to be able to figure out how it worked...so I could release you from it someday... I-It was...so terrible..."

Gently, Reala reached out towards him, fitting one hand over his tiny shoulder. He could remember now. Everything was a blur, but he could clearly recall that feeling of panic...the need to rescue him...the pain as Wizeman tortured his helpless little brother... NiGHTS was almost on the verge of tears right now.

"So, really..." Reala softly spoke up. "I was the one who betrayed you, not the other way around."

"Y-You couldn't help it," NiGHTS replied. "It wasn't your fault. I felt so guilty... If I hadn't forced you to come to the Dreaming World with me, then..."

"You would've been captured instead," Reala finished. "And I'm not sure if I could have dealt with that."

NiGHTS trembled a little again and slowly began to lift his head.

"And besides, I'm here now," Reala continued. "So everything worked out just fine. Everything's going to be okay now..."

NiGHTS moved up, gently wrapping his arms around him again and burying his face into his chest...close to his crystal. And although Reala gave an automatic start of revulsion...he couldn't bring himself to shove him off this time. For just one brief, serene moment, he thought he almost felt the "connection" he had been talking about. He couldn't exactly remember what his relationship with NiGHTS had been before...but he knew that, no matter what it was...he _did_ kind of...care about him.

_Drip...drip...drip..._ Uh-oh...

Reala looked up from NiGHTS for a moment and turned towards the doorway. There was Tiana, a towel wrapped tightly around her body, her long, ragged hair dripping small pools of water onto the rug, her large brown eyes goggling at the two of them.

"Ow! What was that... Oh! H-Hi, Tiana!" Reala immediately smacked NiGHTS away from him, and the purple jester-creature quickly rubbed his face and flashed a big grin at her.

_Er...did I just interrupt something? _

"I suppose this means we have to get out of your bedroom now," Reala said, floating up off her bed, towards the doorway.

"Oh! Er...okay!" NiGHTS cried, following after him.

Tiana stepped sideways into the room as they went by. She closed the door behind them. _Uh..._ She wondered, staring forward, nervously. _Just...what the heck were they doing on my bed while I was in the shower?!_

(-)

"Kyahahahahahahahaha! Ohmygosh! He really said that?!"

"Rrrrrrgh..."

"And he transformed into a dolphin? Seriously?! Ree _hates_ morphing!"

"Well, it's not like I had a choice in the matter!"

"Excuse me--I'm talking to _Tiana_."

"Stop corrupting my Explorer."

"I'm not _corrupting _her--I'm just talking to her! Jeez!"

"Well, how would you like it if I was chatting it up with one of your little Dreamers, hmm?"

"That's different! You'd make them feel bad!"

Tiana sighed. Was she going to be in the middle of their arguments for the rest of this whole shamble of a save-the-world quest? She _had _been a bit grateful to be able to speak with NiGHTS one-on-one like this. He'd have different perspectives on things...and she actually had a few questions for him. But Reala had decided that he was going to clean the hallway at the same time and eavesdrop on them. And he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

"...If it's going to bother you, then go somewhere else!" NiGHTS added. "I promise, I'm not saying anything to her that's going to 'corrupt' her, or whatever you're talking about."

"...I just heard you laughing at me."

"Okay, okay. No more making fun of you. I'll try my hardest. Please?"

Reala groaned, leaning one hand against the wall and turning away. "Fine. Whatever," he spoke through his gritted teeth. "I'll go clean the kitchen."

"And take out the trash while you're at it!" Tiana couldn't help but call after him as he began to float down the hall.

"I hate you all so much right now..." Reala zipped around the corner and into the kitchen to stick his head under a faucet and defuse himself.

NiGHTS was grinning like a lunatic and trying not to burst into laughter. "Ahhh...ehhh...huhh. Ahem! ...Good one."

Tiana let the tips of her mouth turn up just a tiny bit as well. "Thanks. Uh, so... Is he always so...cold?" Tiana had to know. Being his brother, NiGHTS would know him better than anyone. And although she enjoyed his straight-up, honest attitude, she was getting a little bit tired of being insulted every ten minutes.

"Huh? Oh...Oh, no." NiGHTS smiled slightly. "He might seem that way, but really, he's very sweet once you get to know him."

Tiana couldn't help skeptically scrunching her brow. "I seriously doubt _that_."

"Oh, you'll see," NiGHTS assured her, waving a hand. "He's got a rough, thick outer shell, but he's all soft and tender inside."

"I'm sorry, but I still can't believe you at all."

"Oh, don't tell me he hasn't done _anything_ nice since he's met you!"

Tiana frowned and searched through her memories of the past few days. _Not really..._ she thought. "Oh...but there was one time..." She was hesitant to actually tell NiGHTS about it, because if Reala ever found out, he'd have her head on a platter. "Um...he...he made me an omelet."

NiGHTS's eyes widened and he tipped his head towards her, curiously.

"That day, he'd made me skip breakfast and lunch, and I was really mad about it, so he made me an omelet. Well, he made a fruit salad first, but he messed up on that..."

NiGHTS giggled, softly, holding his hands to his mouth. "_Really_? Ohmygosh! Kheeheeheehee...see, that's just like him. He's too stubborn and prideful to come apologize face-to-face, so he does things like that. It _is _really sweet..."

"So..." Tiana took a deep breath, hoping to change the subject. "Um, how come you keep saying that you two haven't seen each other in a long time? What happened between you, anyway?"

NiGHTS's giggles subsided, replaced by a grim line of a mouth. "There was...an awful battle..." he spoke, softly. "We were forced to fight against each other. You see...Ree was brainwashed into being a Nightmaren."

The questioning look on her face told him he needed to explain.

"Uh...Nightmaren are the evil, dark creatures of the Dreaming World that steal ideya. You've got something like them here...black, wispy creatures..."

"Voidables?"

"Yeah. That's what they're called. Nightmaren are like the Dreaming World's version of Voidables. I had to protect it from them. I was afraid that I would never get to be together with him like this again."

_Really...? _Tiana considered. _So Reala used to be a creature who stole ideya from people? No wonder he didn't want to give it back to me..._ Her face fell down into a scowl. _All the more reason I don't completely trust him with all this. What is it my mother always said? "Old habits die hard." _

"But you guys make a great team, I can tell!" NiGHTS chirped, perking back up again. "This is really going somewhere!"

_He's completely oblivious..._ Tiana couldn't look into his bright, cheerful face anymore. There was something about it...a sense that it would all blow away. An illusion. Whatever it was...somehow she knew it wouldn't last. And that was what disturbed her more than anything else.

(-)

Tiana groaned as she placed the phone back on its white plastic base beside the sofa. Oh, God. Why today? Her mother had just called the house, letting her know that the car had broken down again on her way back from the job interview, so she was staying at a friend's house for the night while they fixed it. So now, Tiana was stuck all alone with the jester brothers for the rest of the night--_and _she was going to have to make dinner.

_Stupid car. Couldn't it have picked some other night to break down?! Well...I suppose if it had broken down before, that would've left me alone with Reala for the whole night. Now that NiGHTS is here, he can pick on him instead and leave me alone. _In fact, she suddenly realized, he hadn't made another crack at her since he'd cleaned her room. Maybe having NiGHTS around all the time wouldn't be so bad after all...

"Okay," she boldly announced as she stepped into the kitchen, where the two of them were currently beating each other over the head with serving spoons. "My mom's not going to be home tonight, so I'm making dinner." _Why do I suddenly feel like the parent here? _

Thankfully, they both dropped the spoons in the sink and hovered up to join her at the side of the table. "I'll have a nice, thick steak," Reala ordered, plopping himself down in the chair near the doorway. "Medium rare. Don't skimp on the seasoning."

Tiana glared down at him. "We don't have _steak_. And even if we did, I wouldn't be able to _cook_ it."

"Then what _do _you have?" he replied, leaning over the table in annoyance. "I need some meat."

NiGHTS glanced suspiciously down at him as Tiana turned around to rummage through the fridge. "Uh...not much. There's leftover spaghetti with meatballs... Oh, here's a frozen chicken dinner..."

"I guess I'll just have that, then," Reala settled.

"What do you want, NiGHTS?" Tiana asked as she popped the frozen tray into the microwave. The purple creature hadn't spoken a word yet--he was still hovering upright beside his brother, looking kind of lost.

"Uh--oh, that's alright," he finally replied, brushing her off. "I'm all set--I don't want anything."

Tiana stared, worriedly back at him as she returned to the table's side. "But won't you be hungry? You came to visit, so I don't want you starving yourself just for my sake."

"Er..." Now, NiGHTS looked even more confused and awkward then before. He shot another searching glance over at Reala, but he only drummed his fingernails against the tabletop, innocently, as he watched his tray of chicken warming in the microwave.

"Um..." NiGHTS turned back to Tiana again, nervously. "Well, I..._we_...don't...actually need to eat anything," he slowly explained. "We can if we want to, but...it's not required. We don't use food or sleep to keep our bodies running. We...never get tired...or hungry..."

Tiana's body froze. Gradually, she began to tremble. NiGHTS slowly backed away from the table. Reala started to hum in his soft, deep voice.

"..._What_?!" Tiana finally burst, shoving her hands onto the table and glaring him in the face. "You mean...I've been feeding you this entire time when you don't even _need_ to eat?!"

Reala shrugged. "Well, unlike spirit-boy here, I like to enjoy life's material pleasures."

"That food costs _money_, you know!"

"Consider it reimbursement for my services. I just cleaned your house for you, didn't I?"

Tiana snarled at him, and the microwave suddenly let off a shrill beep in the background.

"...Now go get my chicken."

"Arrrrrgh..." she fumed, grabbing the hot tray out and practically throwing it at him before shoving her own frozen dinner in its place. _"He's really very sweet once you get to know him..." Yeah, sure, NiGHTS. I hate to say it, but you don't know your own brother. Not like I do..._

Reala only grinned in triumph and shoved a chicken leg in his mouth, bone and all.

"_Jeez_, Ree!" NiGHTS cried, crossing his legs and leaning back in mid-air. "Where are your table manners?!"

"_Mmmmut _'pable mammers'?" He swallowed. "There aren't any tables in Nightmare."

"You're supposed to at least chew your food a little before you just swallow it!"

Reala shrugged. "I never had to before."

"What the heck did they feed you in Nightmare?"

"Nightopians."

NiGHTS's whole face froze. The healthy peach color began to drain out of it. He fell back down to the floor.

Tiana came back to the table, holding her tray of macaroni and looking back and forth between them in the awkward silence. Now _what's going on? _

"..._Eeeeeewwwwww_!!" NiGHTS finally shrieked out. "Eewwwwww!! Oh, ewwww!! I can't believe you!!" He doubled over, clutching his stomach, and for a moment, Tiana was afraid he might throw up. _But...he can't throw up if he doesn't eat anything..._ NiGHTS's face wrinkled terribly together in pain--he almost looked like he might cry. "How could you _do _a thing like that?!"

Reala simply shrugged again and held up a second drumstick. "What can I say? I thought I was a Nightmaren. That's what Nightmaren do. They have to eat Nightopians. Whole. That's what I did. A 'Pian for breakfast, a 'Pian for lunch, a 'Pian for dinner..."

"_Shut up_!!" NiGHTS yelled, hurling one of the spoons at him. "I can't believe you...I'm never speaking to you again."

Reala rolled his eyes as the spoon bonked off his head. "We'll see how long _that_ lasts..." He stuffed the second drumstick in his mouth.

Tiana turned her head away to avoid seeing him do that weird head thing again. "How can you just eat stuff like that without choking?!" she wondered aloud. "It's impossible!" In her mind, she could picture Reala and NiGHTS's waists--both about the size of her neck. Whatever these "Nightopian" things were, they had to be fairly big compared to a normal chicken egg.

"Oh. I should think it would have been obvious," Reala replied, as he dourly poked at the third and final drumstick. "Our bodies are stretchable."

"Yeah, like this!" NiGHTS popped up beside the table, instantly happy and excited again, and grabbed the edges of his mouth, stretching his face out about three feet. "Nyyaaaaaaaaaugh..."

Tiana's eyes bulged open and she nearly fell backwards out of her chair. Her face began to turn white.

"Stop that," Reala warned him. "You're scaring her."

NiGHTS's giant frogmouth frowned in his hands. "Scaring her?! 'Stop scaring her', says the former General of Nightmare..."

Reala looked over at him for a moment with half-lidded eyes. "It's...a different kind of scary."

"Mmmwhatever," NiGHTS released his mouth, letting it spring back to its normal size like rubber. "I know you hate doing that. I still can't believe you morphed into a dolphin."

Reala just ignored him and finished off the last piece of chicken.

Tiana buried her head again and tried to block it out. Her macaroni was going to go cold before she would even be able to eat it. _This is impossible..._ she groaned. _He's just as disgusting as his brother! Between the two of them, I'm _never _going to get a moment to myself! Just how long will it be before NiGHTS goes through all my stuff too?! _

(-)

She stepped into the parlor, and they both floated after her, almost automatically. _"Why do you have to follow me everywhere?!" _she wanted to snap at them. _"Go away!" _But it was no use. Reala was joined to her hip, and now NiGHTS was joined to _his _hip. It was a package deal.

Tiana plopped into the squishy beige cushions of her sofa and tried to ignore their arguing voices. Hmm...maybe if she could find the TV controller, she could use it to drown them out.

"Oh, oh, oh!" NiGHTS's eyes lit up as he scanned the room, turning away from his disgruntled brother for a moment. "I know what we can do!" With that, he zoomed forward, shoving the coffee table back against the door. "Do you have any music, Tiana? Something happy and upbeat?"

"Er..." Tiana nervously glanced over at the table, tipped sideways to fit against the door, its blue fuzzy cloth slipping off. _It's a good thing my mother isn't coming home tonight._ "...Maybe."

_"Something happy and upbeat"? _Most of Tiana's CDs were alternative rock and techno, but maybe she had a few older pop or dance tracks that could qualify. _NiGHTS probably likes pop. I bet Reala likes heavy metal--with all the screaming and stuff. He used to be some kind of Nightmare creature, right? _"I'll go look," she told him, running off down the hall and finally escaping them for one precious minute.

Reala cocked his eyelid at NiGHTS as soon as she had disappeared. "What in the name of the four realms is going through that pea-sized little brain of yours?"

"You said we could have happy joyful reunion celebration time!" NiGHTS chirped, grinning from sensor to sensor. "So that's what we're doing now!"

_Oh, God, no..._ "Well, I didn't mean it!" he growled, teeth clenching together. "I only said that in order to get you to comply with my wishes."

NiGHTS just continued to smile. "Too late--you already said it. And now you can't take it back."

"It was _supposed _to be a joke!"

Tiana stepped back into the room, holding two CDs, and the brothers fell to exchanging stubborn glares. "Uh..." Tiana stepped a little closer to NiGHTS's side, wading through the thick atmosphere and held the cases out to him. "...Which one do you want?"

"Ooh, that one! It's got clouds on it!"

"Er...okay." Tiana wondered if NiGHTS even knew what a CD was, but she walked over to the CD player next to the television and popped it in, accordingly.

Reala crossed his arms and stared up at the ceiling as a light and rhythmic tune bubbled out of the speakers and NiGHTS began to hop around the parlor to the beat. "C'mon, Ree! What are you just standing there for?" He leaped and twirled a little closer to him on his toes, gracefully.

"I'm _not_ dancing. There's no way."

"How come?" NiGHTS twisted his body around into the air and stared at him upside-down, with a pout. "It's happy reunion celebration time! You have to dance! ...Unless you're too _scared _to."

Reala had to glance back over at that. "...What?"

NiGHTS twirled back down and started to hop around in place again. His eyes narrowed. "I know. You don't _know_ how to dance, and you're just afraid to embarrass yourself in front of your Explorer, is that it? You're too chicken, because you know you can't dance as good as I can!"

_That _got his full attention. Reala lowered his gaze to meet NiGHTS's, a threatening glare darkening his face. He began to snap his fingers, catching the beat of the music and tapping one foot along with it. "...Is that a challenge I hear?"

"You bet it is!"

"Well, then, I can't just stand around and let you beat me, can I?!"

_They're going to have a dance-off competition in the middle of my parlor?! _Tiana realized. "Um...hey...there's kind of a guy living underneath us right now, and I really don't think you should make him angry..." But of course, NiGHTS and Reala didn't hear her at all, being so intensely focused on their movements and on each other. She sighed and sank back onto the sofa. _Well...at least they're not beating each other up. Yet. _

At last, Reala found himself breaking naturally into an actual dance, swerving back and forth to the beat and bouncing nimbly off his toes. It had been a very long time since he'd danced like this--in fact, he couldn't even remember the last time he'd danced at all...but it felt comfortable. His movements were a little stiff at first, but he was quickly getting used to it.

NiGHTS danced close in front of him, gradually moving backwards and drawing him out. His face beamed as he watched the experience coming back to him before his eyes. He never imagined or dared to hope that he'd be here again--dancing together in harmony with his brother. He pushed off from the floor just a little bit and moved his body in fluid motions to the beat.

Reala followed after him, and he felt his limbs loosening up a little more. This was so different from the rigid and militaristic way that he usually carried himself that it felt odd at first...but it was actually quite similar to _that_ time... The song ended, but a new one came on right after it--and thankfully, the whole CD contained fast, dancing songs like this.

Now comfortable with the basic mechanics of dancing, Reala began to experiment with larger and more complicated movements, extending his arms in the air, and then turning a quick somersault.

NiGHTS smiled and did a similar flip, horizontally.

When he came back up, their eyes met...and magically the same thoughts seemed to go through their minds at the exact same time. Smoothly and naturally, NiGHTS and Reala leaped towards each other, passing by each other and grabbing hands. They didn't need to communicate verbally--each could tell what the other was thinking. They began to spin around each other, back to back, then weaved in and out in the small space they had between the floor and the ceiling, creating beautifully elaborate designs with the sparkles trailing out of their hands.

Tiana watched from her position on the couch with growing wonder. This was something beyond her comprehension--she couldn't even begin to understand. The two jester-creatures always argued and picked on each other. But right now, they were performing a beautiful dance together, as if the arguments had never happened. They weren't even trying to compete anymore.

NiGHTS was beginning to giggle--he just couldn't keep the joy inside of him anymore. His body bounced off the ceiling, speeding back down to catch Reala's hands. And they spun each other--around and around, faster and faster. NiGHTS couldn't help bursting into laughter, though Reala's face remained expressionless. They broke away a moment later, falling back into their crazy, energetic air-dance.

_Ugh..._ It felt awful. It was getting worse now. It was almost painful. He was going to explode if he tried to compress it inside any longer. Reala had to stop for just a moment to let out a short cough, thumping a fist against his chest, and NiGHTS flew back down to meet him, concerned. But a moment later, the dance was renewed--even more energetic than before.

Tiana couldn't help tapping her fingers against the armrests as she watched them. It almost made her want to get up and dance too...but she'd never danced in front of anybody before. It was another piece of her private inner world that she couldn't share with any other people. Another way in which she wouldn't fit in with the world. Still, Tiana decided to stand up anyway and at least get a better look at the two celebrating creatures while leaning against the armrest. They were awfully close together now...

A moment later, Tiana leaned back against the thick beige armrest of the sofa and looked up towards the ceiling--to suddenly see Reala lying suspended in the air above her head and looking down at her. Her mouth dropped open in shock...and an instant later, she found her hand being yanked forward...and her body being whirled around, her parlor flying past her eyes in one short second. "Uh..." Suddenly, she felt something sharp against the middle of her back. There was the sound of NiGHTS laughing and clapping in the background...the continued twanging tune of the latest song...and then...

When she looked up again, she knew she saw it. Reala's face was above her, a little closer this time...and even if it was very small...he was smiling. It wasn't one of his cold smirks or sarcastic grins. It was actually...some small form of joy. Tiana pulled her body back up again, and he floated away. Had _he_ just spun her around like that?!

"Hey, Tiana!" NiGHTS cried, flying up to her. "Don't just sit there and be a couch potato! Dance with us!" And though Reala didn't say anything, the look on his face was enough. The crystal at the center of his chest was softly glowing.

_I can do it too_, she decided, and nodded to NiGHTS, a smile stretching across her own face. _I can just...let it out._

And so she did. For as long as the rest of the CD lasted, she danced in place in the middle of the parlor, laughing and watching the beautiful, magical sparkles swirling around her...as NiGHTS and Reala danced together overhead.

(-)

Everyone was pretty wiped out. Tiana lied back in the recliner, catching her breath and staring at the ceiling. NiGHTS and Reala sat on the floor in front of the sofa, their backs against each other and their sensors almost entwined and squashed into a mess of stripes. No one said a word. It was a wonderful moment. Comfortable...still...and serene...

Tiana listlessly made pictures out of the cracks on her ceiling. _Hmm...that one looks kind of like a dragon..._ Just as her mind began to wander off, an unusual, high noise reached her senses. Music. The high-pitched trilling of a flute.

She turned her head back down...and noticed that the sound was actually coming from NiGHTS. The purple jester-creature was curling his gloved fingers around the air, close to his lips...softly blowing into an invisible flute. _So...he does that invisible-instrument thing too?_

Just at that thought, Reala raised his arms on the other side...and joined in, running his long-nailed hands over the invisible strings of his lyre.

Whatever breath Tiana had just managed to catch came right back out of her. She leaned forward again in the recliner, her eyes fixated on them. She'd never been much of a fan of classical intrumental music...but the sounds coming out of them now were too incredible for words. The tune was soft, gentle...and beautiful. It almost made her want to cry, for some completely unknown reason.

The soaring high notes of the flute somehow melded perfectly with the mellow, smooth chords of the lyre. It was incredible to see the unity in those those two creatures. To gaze upon them at that moment was to look into the center of the universe itself--fact and fiction, sun and moon, dark and light, grounded and buoyant, obligation and freedom, strife and peace...all in perfect harmony. Tiana couldn't pull away from the sight. Every small piece of her body was frozen in wonderment. She felt her heart beating. The only thing that mattered was the two creatures--their bodies and their instruments joined together as one.

At last, the notes began to soften and fade away on the breath of the air, lingering gently in the atmosphere. And when the last one wavered and curled away like a cloud, Tiana was left with an even more profound sense of serenity. For just one moment, she could feel that the world was a lovely, caring place, full of wonder and beauty. Then, even that began to fade away like an evanescent mist.

NiGHTS was smiling to himself again, secretly. He stretched back and rested the center of his head against Reala's shoulder. He pushed him back off a moment later. He just continued smiling and wrapped his arms around his knees, pulling himself up.

Tiana's breath began to return to her now. It was...normal again. They were acting as their separate selves. The connection had been severed. "U-Uh..." her voice chanced to speak out again, her amazement apparent. "Oh... Um...I didn't know you played the flute, NiGHTS."

The purple creature turned towards her with a different, broad kind of smile. "Well, actually, it's a piccolo! There's a big difference, you see."

She frowned. Where had she heard _that_ line before?

Reala suddenly stood up and broke the connection completely. "Well," he spoke up. "That's over now. Are you satisfied?"

"Yes. Very satisfied." NiGHTS flashed him a toothy grin and hugged his incredibly tiny knees closer together.

Reala crossed his arms and turned towards the digital clock on the television stand, which now read "10:42." "And now, it's time for bed."

NiGHTS's head automatically shot up again at the sound of the word "bed". "What? Seriously?! Oh, gosh, I missed the ceremony! I _never _miss the ceremony! And I've got to..." His entire body leaped up at the realization. "I've got to go see Will and Helen! Ohmygosh, I can't believe I forgot! I've got to tell them I'm not dead before they fall asleep! Oh gosh, I can just imagine how they must be feeling!"

"Well, then, what are you standing around here for?" Reala's annoyed voice asked. "The sooner you get flying, the sooner you'll reach them."

"Ah! Yes! Right you are, brother, dear! I must fly!!" And with that, NiGHTS turned and shot straight out the nearest open window, spiraling off into the dark night sky. "Fare thee wellllllllllll!!"

"And don't bother coming back!" Reala called after him, though he was probably too far away by now to hear it. He groaned and turned back towards the hallway. "What a nut job."

Tiana stared after him as he began to float down the hallway. "And where are you going?"

"To _bed_," he coldly replied. "Isn't that what I just got through saying?!"

"But it's too early to go to bed."

"You go ahead and stay up as long as you want, but I'm going to bed. I'm exhausted, having to put up with _that_ thing all afternoon."

"Eugh...okay..." Tiana watched him disappear down the corridor into her room and turned to look back at the open window. It was suddenly so silent and kind of lonely. She scowled in confusion. _But...but didn't he say that...they don't _have _to sleep?_

(-)

It was cold. A thick, dusty smell lingered in the air. But there was something here. He felt something smooth against his feet. There were craggy mountaintops in the distance, surrounded by a thick, gray smog. It was dark.

_...Where am I? _Reala wondered, staring out across the strange landscape. _How did I get here? I don't remember coming here... I just..._

Something was blocking his thoughts. He couldn't think clearly anymore. His head felt fuzzy and unfocused, as if there was some kind of gas in the air. Maybe that was it. Maybe he was hallucinating. Gradually, he brought one hand up to his head, poking his fingernails against his temple and trying to bring everything back to clarity. It wasn't working.

"Rrrgh..." He shook his head, abandoning the effort. If it wasn't going to work, it wasn't going to work. And for some reason, he had an innate sense that this was the way it was supposed to be.

Everything seemed softly blurry...and yet Reala knew what he was seeing, and that he was seeing it. It was like an active image of the imagination...or a memory.

As he searched harder into the distance, he thought he could see something shiny poking up amongst the brown mountains. _I wonder what that is..._ Something else was in the way of him seeing the landscape clearly. Some kind of long, jagged spikes...

That was when he suddenly remembered that he was standing on something. Reala bent down to look below his feet. _Oh, it's just a floor_, he thought. _It's the floor. What did I expect? _It was the floor. The familiar, old, boring floor. _Maybe I should retile it..._

So, he turned away, decided to get a better look at what exactly he was standing on. Whatever it was, it was unusually high up in the air. He couldn't see his feet. It was as if they blended straight in with the platform they rested against, like two long chameleons. He moved one just a little bit forward, and felt the cool, smooth surface through the thin, stretchy material of his boots. But...there was more to it than that.

When Reala lifted his head again, he caught something in the corner of his eyes. He turned to the side and saw it. There was some kind of thick shelf next to him, the same material as the platform he was standing on, surrounded by a blue light. No, it was...a railing? There was one on the other side of him, too.

Experimentally, he reached out a hand and lightly ran it over it. It felt just as smooth, cool, and polished. A spark of electricity--of recognition--suddenly crackled through Reala's body just from touching it. He pressed his hand against it again and felt its firm, secure hold. It felt somehow reassuring...like he had done this before. He had been here before. This was...his home.

An overbearing pressure began to crush down on the back of Reala's head. He finally pulled himself away from the railing and clutched the ends of his sensors in frustration. They were reacting so strongly that it actually hurt. Something was very close. There was some powerful, living entity right behind him at this moment. He let go of his sensors again, and determinedly, began to turn around...

(-)

And an instant later, he was flat on his back, staring into an infinity of scratchy blank whiteness.

_What the...?! Did that thing just level me in one shot?! I didn't even feel it hit me! And why didn't I fall off the platform? Maybe I'm on the ground...? But I can't be on the ground! Where are the pointy things?! _His thoughts were rushing back to him in crystal clarity, as if they had never been foggy at all. The acuteness of the bumpy sensation underneath him startled him. And then...there was something covering him.

He shot up into a sitting position...and gasped. It was an aqua-green blanket. He was sitting on a cushion over a metal cot, a desk stacked with plastic game cases in front of him. And all around him were the familiar, though cleaner, pieces of furniture and decorations of Tiana's bedroom.

_What in the...?! I was just somewhere else! How did I get back here?! In this...cot..._

His blue eyes widened. Whirling to the right, he could see the bright reddish glow of the sun just beginning to rise on the new day. Whirling to the left, he could see a lump underneath the covers of Tiana's bed, rising and falling as it snored, lightly. He looked down to see the black wrappings over his own chest, and his bare, narrow blue arms.

It had to be. He couldn't believe this had just happened to him, but it was the only explanation. Here were all the signs and symptoms... He had no idea how this could be possible. But it had happened. He knew it for sure.

Reala's head fell down into his hand in shock. He had to take a moment just to stabilize his mind again. _This means..._ he finally began to admit. _That whole thing was...a _dream_..._

(-)

"Well, of course!" that familiar, high, chirpy voice called out. He pointed with one long, white-gloved finger. "You belong to the Waking World. Of course you would be able to dream! You can come to the Dreaming World when you go to sleep! Though I wouldn't really call you a Visitor... I'm not really sure what you count as when you're there..."

Reala's elliptical eyes narrowed, almost to slits. "I thought I told you _not to come back_."

NiGHTS grinned. "I'm here to keep an eye on you, didn't I say that? And look, you couldn't go for one day without me--you're already getting all freaked out because you just had a dream for the first time you can remember."

"I wasn't freaked out."

"Oh, sure, you weren't. I saw that look in your eyes..."

"What are you talking about?"

Tiana groaned and tried to concentrate on the lined pages of the notebook on her bed in front of her. It was pretty impossible. Today had been pretty boring, actually, up until now. Her mother had come home that evening, apologizing profusely for leaving her all by herself for so long. Tiana calmly explained that she hadn't been alone at all, but her mother only laughed this off as her fantasies again. At least Reala had gone off to fly some laps around the house and clear his head, so she'd at least been able to get some quiet time in which to finish all of her homework for tomorrrow. But then, just after night fell, NiGHTS showed up again in her living room, having just completed the "ceremony" and firmly attaching himself back to his brother's side. And ever since, they'd been having a question-and-argument session over Reala's recent dream.

Tiana didn't really understand what the big deal was. She hadn't had a real dream herself in a long time--just the same boring old fountain with the same boring old owl hovering over her all the time. She wished she could have a dream about standing on a platform and feeling like there was someone behind her. Reala hadn't stopped talking about this stupid dream he'd had all day.

"I'm surprised you were even sleeping!" NiGHTS chattered on. "Do you like to sleep a lot too, just for the pleasure of it?"

"Uh, no," Reala replied, glaring straight back at him. "I was tired because of _you_! If you hadn't showed up and forced me into that ridiculous dance thing, I might not have needed to go to bed so early. Then, I might not have had that weird dream at all and you wouldn't be standing here right now..."

"You were _tired_?" NiGHTS suddenly interrupted him, his face growing grave and concerned. "How come you were tired?"

"I _told _you--because _you_ wouldn't let me--"

"No," NiGHTS spoke out again, his light voice unusually low and dark. "You're not supposed to be tired. No matter what kinds of crazy things you do. We...we're never supposed to have to sleep. It's always been that way. You've never been tired before..."

Reala skeptically cocked his head a little. "Really?"

"Yeah..." NiGHTS floated closer, his face crinkling slightly with worry. "If you're getting tired, something must be really wrong with you..."

"There's nothing wrong with me," Reala coldly assured him. "You're the weirdo zooming all over the place with so much energy all the time. _You _should take a rest yourself--it'd do you good."

"Pah!" Tiana finally just gave up and threw her pen down, snapping her notebook closed and shoving it back in her desk. "Forget it. I can't concentrate with you two going at it like that. I'm just going to go to bed now."

"Oh! I'm sorry!" NiGHTS realized, gliding to her bedside. "Ree and I could've gone out in the parlor to snap at each other. I didn't know we were bothering you."

"S'alright," she muttered. "I need to go to bed anyway--I have school tomorrow."

"Oh, okay." NiGHTS flashed a gigantic, excited smile at her as she turned over and began to pull the covers around her body. "Good night!"

Tiana stared at him in surprise. "Uh...good night." _So I guess it's just a Reala thing, and not a "flying jester creature" thing..._

"Aaaarrrgh!" Reala growled on cue, smashing a fist against one of the cot's poles just to take his anger out on something. "I _hate _it when you say that!!"

"Oh! Sorry, Ree," NiGHTS whirled around, looking surprised that he was even there at all. "I forgot about the whole ceremony phrases thing..."

Reala slowly sucked in his breath again and tried to prevent himself from bashing his face in. It wouldn't do to make so much noise while Tiana's mother was in the room next door. "...I hate you," he finally said, softly.

"I know."

"Shut up, I'm trying to sleep here," Tiana called over her shoulder.

"Oh, sorry..."

Reala simply plopped himself onto the cot and let out his remaining breath. "I suppose I'll just go to bed too," he decided. "There's nothing better to do."

"Okay." NiGHTS flipped the light switch and floated up to the cot as he began to remove his boots and jacket and rearrange his blanket. And as soon as he had completely reclined backwards onto the cot, he easily slid forward and settled down next to him.

Reala looked over at the slim purple body nestling onto the end of the cot beside him and scowled. "What are you _doing_?"

"Sleeping," NiGHTS innocently replied. "You told me that I should get more rest, and so I'm taking your advice!"

"And why _here_?"

"Well...where else am I supposed to sleep? This thing is designed for humans, so there's plenty of room. I don't see why I should have to sleep on the floor."

Reala groaned and rolled over towards the window. "Don't you have a job you should be doing?"

NiGHTS shrugged, smiling secretly in the cover of darkness. "It's all right. Wizeman is very weak now. It's going to take a while for him to regroup himself again. I don't have anything to worry about--I'm allowed to slack off once in a while, aren't I?"

Reala sighed, softer this time, and closed his eyes. There was no way he was going to get NiGHTS to leave unless he kicked him off. And he just didn't feel like it right now. All he wanted to do was just sleep...maybe find out some more about the place with the platform and the railings.

NiGHTS turned over in the same direction to face his wrapped-up back. He wondered why he kept wearing those awful bandages from Wizeman, but didn't want to actually ask. Because maybe he didn't really want to know.

"...Are you tired again?" NiGHTS whispered, slowly pulling himself closer. There was no response. So he came a little closer still. His face was now rimmed on both sides by Reala's curling sensors. He knew he could feel it. Gently and gradually, he brought one arm up...and fitted it around his narrow waist.

He felt it. But he didn't feel like doing anything about it. Reala had still been getting used to the fact that NiGHTS wasn't his enemy anymore, and never actually had been. But something about the whole experience yesterday had made it much easier to believe and accept. He could almost understand...what he had said about their "connection."

Though he was barely able to admit it...it was actually a tiny bit comfortable...not to be alone anymore. Not to be the only creature of his kind in existence. NiGHTS was a part of himself...and though he didn't have to agree with it, or even understand it...he had to accept it. Once, they had been close enough for him to physically enter the Dreaming World for him...for him to sacrifice his soul for him. And maybe this was what it had been like.

And so, Reala just kept his eyes firmly closed and tried to feel. The thin body lied still against him, close and warm. And, even if it was just for right now...he savored in the newfound silent, peaceful togetherness.


	6. South Pole: The Reality of Love

And...another short chapter. I think it actually is a little shorter this time. But forget the chapters being anywhere near short after this. Things are about to get intense.

It was pretty hard to write this chapter in the middle of the summer heat. I sat in front of the air conditioner while writing most of this.

I was confused about the name of the machine that the boss Voidable is. It might also be "digger" or something like that...but you'll get the idea.

The "Flopper Racing" thing is based on Mario Kart. I've been playing the new one for Wii. And the characters are actually really old Sonic OCs I had back in the day.

Boy...I just realized it, but this chapter kind of makes NiGHTS look bad. I wanted to show the "darker" side of him, but I didn't mean for it to be too negative. He's just in a place where he doesn't belong.

Reala, NiGHTS, Awakers, and everything else belong to Sonic Team. I own Tiana, her mother, the Voidables, and that weird "Burizzon" thing. Don't ask me what I was thinking.

The next chapter shall be sometime in mid-July! ...Hopefully. I know I'm really excited for it right now!

(-)

Chapter 6: South Pole: The Reality of Love

"_Eeeeeeeeyaaaaaugh_!! Getitoff, getitoff, getitoff!!"

Tiana was off to a great start on Monday morning, when this earsplitting shriek jolted her out of her position on the blue stone floor with the owl circling around her. She had to be thankful that her mother couldn't hear Reala and NiGHTS's voices at all. A terrible high-pitched squealing pierced out from somewhere above her head, and she thought she felt something thump against the wall.

"Hey!" Reala's cross voice followed. "Leave them alone!"

"But they're _everywhere_!! Why are there so many of them?! _Go away_!!"

"Mmm?" Tiana carefully sat up in her bed, a bit reluctant to find out exactly what was going on. It didn't sound very pleasant. And sure enough, it wasn't at all.

NiGHTS was screaming and swatting at a group of Awakers gathered around the cot near the window. Reala was floating towards the other side of the room, a snarl twisting his face. The Awakers all fled out the window as fast as their little streaky tails could take them, giving off more of those high-pitched squeaking noises that she guessed was screaming. They were scared of..._NiGHTS_?

They were all gone in a matter of seconds, and Reala had scooped the last remaining one off the floor. Its black eyes were closed, and its shiny fins sagged limply over his hands. He poked it a little to see if it was still alive. Nothing. "Now look what you did!" Reala snapped, shoving the dead Awaker into NiGHTS's face. "You probably scared the poor thing to death, smacking it all the way across the room like that."

"B-b-but-but..." NiGHTS replied, crawling back away from the thing in revulsion. "Normally, they _can't _die! I've smacked them around like that all the time--they just keep coming back to life!"

"They can't die while they're visiting _your _realm, but this is their _own_ world! They're much more vulnerable!"

"Well, it was, like, on my back! And it was all slimy and gross!"

Reala just sighed and turned away from him. "Sure. You'll go and criticize me for eating your precious little 'Pians, but kill off my Wakeys like it's nothing. Hypocrite."

"Well, just warn me the next time your 'Wakeys' are gonna be swarming all over the place--I'll just get out of there."

"Whatever. I have to go bury him now... And if any more show up, _don't touch them_!"

"I won't touch them--I'll just get away from them."

"Fine."

Tiana felt a little sad as she watched Reala float past her and down the hallway, holding the little white body cupped in his hands. Maybe he was sad about it too, but he wouldn't ever show it. What a wonderful way to start the day--already, things were getting killed.

"Uh...sorry about that." NiGHTS's eyes gazed down at the carpet, ashamed. "I didn't mean to wake you up with all that screaming."

"Oh...that's okay." _I thought he was going to apologize for killing the Awaker. _"I have to get up to go to school anyway." Tiana glanced over at her alarm clock--there were only two minutes left before it went off.

NiGHTS frowned. "You kids always have to get up so early to go to school...it's not right. You need more sleep than that."

"Yeah!" Tiana cried, surprised to hear someone actually agreeing with her on this point for once. "We should start school at, like, nine o' clock! I don't care if I have to stay later!"

NiGHTS beamed. "Exactly! That way, you don't have to spend so much time hanging around this boring old place!"

_Why in the world am I stuck with Reala, if I feel so much more comfortable with NiGHTS? _She wondered. _Our personalities go better together. Though...maybe he would get on my nerves after awhile. _Slowly, she began to get out of bed and gather up her things. _And then there's that weird feeling whenever I look at his face...like, he's hiding something...covering something up with that smile. _

A few minutes later, Ms. Weaver poked into the doorway to wish her daughter a good day and warn her about not missing the bus again. NiGHTS complacently froze in place so she wouldn't notice him, although she did confusedly glance at the cot for a moment. She rushed out the door again to work, forgetting to set the table this time.

"Gee," NiGHTS spoke up, once she was out of sight. "Your mom is hardly ever home, is she?"

Tiana resented the soft, pitying expression that fell over his face then. Why did everyone have to act like they were sorry for her? Just because she lived in a third-floor apartment in a slummy area of the city? Just because she didn't have a normal, big, happy family like everyone else... "That doesn't matter to me," she solidly told him. "I'm not a kid anymore--I don't need my mother around all the time. I can do everything by myself anyway."

NiGHTS only blinked, and his gentle, concerned expression didn't fade. "You and Ree really do make a good team..."

_What the heck's that supposed to mean?! I'm not like him at all!_ Tiana just decided to ignore NiGHTS for now and scuffled down the hall to do her "little human morning things".

As soon as she was dressed, she stepped back into her room, and Reala came flying back in through the window. He simply seated himself back on the end of the cot, arms and legs crossed and clearly in a bad mood. He stared away from his brother, his face dark and resentful. NiGHTS automatically backed away from him a little bit, knowing better than to disturb him now.

"Um..." Tiana began, carefully trying something out. "Good morning, Reala."

And while NiGHTS doubled over, squashing his sensors into his head and trembling in terror, Reala looked up at her, his face instantly alert and brightened. "Well, good morning to you too."

Tiana couldn't help but smile a little bit. _I knew saying that to him would make him feel better. _

"Why did you have to do that in front of me?!" NiGHTS cried, still pressing his sensors against the sides of his head.

"Well, you did it to me last night!" Reala protested. "Turnaround's fair play!"

"I'm going to school now," Tiana announced, though neither of them acknowledged her at all. "I'm going to be late for the bus."

"Good morning," Reala said again, leaning closer to NiGHTS, a mischievous grin on his face.

"Did you have to do that _again_?!"

"Yes."

"Okay...I'm leaving...?"

"But I only did it once!"

"Too bad. You killed my Wakey."

"But you must've eaten, like, fifty 'Pians by now!"

"Bye, then... Please don't destroy my house while I'm gone."

"Good morning, good morning, good morning!"

"_Yeaaaaaugh-aaaugh-aaaugh_! _Stop it_!!"

"...Please..."

(-)

Tiana's days at school now seemed exceptionally quiet compared to her home life. Eventually, the protests subsided, though she hadn't spoken with Stella or even Lily since the incident. They were just...avoiding her. Normally, this wouldn't bother her at all, except for the fact that it was embarrassing to sit alone in the cafeteria, but now, for some reason, she actually felt a little upset.

_They rejected me. Because I'm a weirdo who pretends to see things. I'm not pretending. But no one will believe that. My own mother wouldn't believe me, even when I told her everything about Reala. She thinks I'm crazy for having that cot in my room. I've heard her talking to Dr. Chaine over the phone..._

Tiana didn't want to go back to that stupid therapist anymore. All he did was ask her how she felt all the time and try to make her feel worse about her own situation. It was the same concern and pity that NiGHTS had given her that morning. _"Oh, your mother's gone all the time, huh? She can't take you to school or pick you up. She never has time to do anything with you anymore... That must be very lonely, isn't it?" No. It's not at all. I've never been lonely..._

Though, the achy feeling in Tiana's chest wouldn't leave, as much as she drowned it with these thoughts. The only time it faded away was when she was distracted by NiGHTS and Reala's crazy antics.

Whenever her mother was home in the evening, they were forced to keep it down, but from two to six every afternoon, they were always doing something weird and making a lot of noise. The first day, she came home to find them having some kind of pillow war in the parlor, complete with fortresses. On the second day, NiGHTS had discovered the television and was bawling his eyes out at some random soap opera while Reala played incredibly tragic music over the CD player and laughed maniacally. On the third day, they had a cook-off competition and set each other's sleeves on fire, causing the smoke detector to start blaring. And on the fourth day, Tiana had to be stupid enough to teach them how to use her PolyPack.

The two of them sat on her bed, playing the game, while she squeezed into her desk to do some doodling. "I call Ferdancis Boots," Reala announced. "He's a pirate."

"Ohhhh, who am I going to be?!" NiGHTS worried. "I don't know--does it matter?!"

"Be Bailey."

"Okay...hey, but he's really, really slow!"

"Exactly."

"Stop trying to sabotage me! It's not fair!"

It was only their second game of Flopper Racing, and already, Tiana was getting a headache.

"Hey, you should play too, Tiana!" NiGHTS called back at her. "It's fun! You can be player three!"

Tiana raised an eyebrow at him. "I would, but...I _don't have a third controller_."

NiGHTS glanced down at the cresent-moon-shaped controller in his hands. "Oh. I guess you would need another one of these, huh?"

Tiana just rolled her eyes and turned back to her drawing. But she wasn't able to concentrate for long.

"Stop dropping sushi on me!" Reala snapped. "I can't go two feet without you squashing me!"

"Well, it's not my fault! All they give the last player is sushi! I'm not going to just let it sit there!"

"Look, they're all passing me now! I was in _first place_, before you had to go and flatten me! And over a ramp too!"

"Oh, be quiet. I haven't been in first place at all. Everyone just keeps zooming past me because _you_ made me pick the slow guy."

"Oh, sure, make it seem like it's my fault! It's always _my_ fault! Now that guy just took my item ball."

"Susssshiiiiiiiii!!"

"_Aaaaaarrrgh_!!" Reala smacked NiGHTS with his controller so hard that he nearly fell off the bed.

"Hey, owwww!" he cried.

"My controller!!" Tiana screamed, jumping out of her seat to grab it away from him.

It didn't even get better when they moved on to tamer games like Dr. Seraf's Puzzle Blocks. NiGHTS was screaming about trash blocks for hours and Reala wouldn't stop poking fun at him.

"OhmyGod, the trash, the trash! There's too much trash! Look at all this trash!"

"Well, there is!!"

Tiana would have given up and moved into the parlor if she hadn't been afraid for her controllers' lives. But at least while she was worrying and listening to their bickering, she wasn't thinking about her own problems. She couldn't feel that terrible cold feeling gathering in her chest anymore. And as much as they wreaked havoc on her house and annoyed her, she couldn't help but feel a little bit grateful that they were here. Where would she be right now if she had never met Reala that day in the alleyway? She didn't really want to think about that...

(-)

Before she even knew it, it was Saturday again. It had been a whole week since NiGHTS had appeared, and nothing had happened yet. _Isn't there supposed to be another one of those portal things I'm supposed to go through? He hasn't even mentioned it again..._

Tiana looked over from her game of Battle Fantasy World towards the cot in front of her window. Reala was lying down, his sensors squished into the cushion, apparently taking a nap. He'd been complaining all day that he was tired because NiGHTS had kept poking him last night and not letting him get any sleep. She wondered if NiGHTS had been right, and there really was something wrong with him being sleepy. He'd never tried to take a nap like this before.

Tiana would never say it out loud, but she'd begun to notice subtle changes in Reala's behavior since NiGHTS had dropped in. He was...a little less snippy. At least to her. He didn't get as angry with her as he used to. Maybe because NiGHTS used up all of his anger. He'd found a good outlet for all his aggression, and didn't have any left for her anymore. She was even beginning to see examples in the way he spoke. Reala's comments and retorts had become more like sarcastic jibes and nitpickings and less like actual insults. Tiana wouldn't exactly say that he was going soft, but...maybe just a little less rough. She liked it. It was almost peaceful right now--just sitting here and playing a game while he silently rested in front of the window. She should've known that it wouldn't last for long.

At first, she didn't even notice NiGHTS slip into the room behind her. A small, purple shadow slipped past in her peripheral vision, and she was so focused on choosing an item to use that she didn't think anything of it. Brightly-colored things had been flying past her all week.

NiGHTS crept up to the side of the cot, grinning mischievously. Reala was too relaxed at the moment to sense his presence...which was exactly what he wanted. NiGHTS paused for just a moment to revel in his triumph...then flung himself onto the cot, almost on top of him. "_Attack_!!"

Tiana whirled around at the battle cry, to see NiGHTS suddenly shaking the covers around Reala's body and trying to tickle him. It wasn't working. He only sat up, pushing the blanket off of him and fixing his brother with a cold, hard glare. NiGHTS froze.

"Eight...seven...six..."

"Eeeep!" NiGHTS cried when he finally realized what was going on, and zoomed off through the doorway.

"Five...four threetwoone!" Reala sprang after him, following his sparkle trail into the parlor.

Tiana only sighed and continued with her game. They'd be chasing each other all through and around her house for approximately the next twenty minutes. This wasn't the first time. She only hoped that they wouldn't come back into her bedroom. They were throwing off her game concentration.

_Ptdmp! Bmmp-bmp-bmp! _"_Eiiaaaugh_!" _Pimm! Bbbang! _"Ow!" _Pomf! Smack! _"Guh!" _Bdmp-bmp-bmp-bmp..._

Now _what are they doing?! _Frustrated, Tiana slammed on the pause button and stormed down the hallway. Sure enough, NiGHTS and Reala were on the floor of the living room, having some kind of wrestling match reminiscent of bear cubs, trying to pin each other down. She couldn't tell if they were really beating each other up or just playing around--but either way, they couldn't stay like this.

"Hey!" she yelled, over the continued thumping of long, skinny limbs on the beige carpeting. "What did I tell you?! That guy downstairs is going to get mad!!"

Both jester-creatures froze, turning their heads up at her, their eyes wide for one strange instant. Reala whipped back towards his brother, trying to hide his slightly flushed face. "...To the ceiling, then?"

"To the ceiling!!" NiGHTS cried, grabbing him by the sleeve and yanking him up towards their new battle location. They flipped upside-down like bats and continued trying to tackle each other to the cracked white ceiling, as if nothing had happened.

"That's not much better..." Tiana muttered. "Oh well..." Hopefully they'd get sick of it before the roof came crashing down. Hopefully. She turned and began to walk back down to continue her game as normal.

And then...it happened. A terrible, sharp, booming noise shot through the entire building. Tiana's body was instantly paralyzed. She felt the noise pierce through her chest. She couldn't move. She couldn't even breathe.

NiGHTS and Reala gently fell away from the ceiling, lowering halfway. Reala had automatically clamped his arms around NiGHTS's chest, glancing around, on his highest alert. "What was that?!" NiGHTS cried out, and he squished his hands firmly around his mouth as well. "Mmmf!"

No one spoke again for a long time afterwards. Tiana gradually made her way back to the parlor...gathering around the nearest source of life and possible protection. She had never experienced anything like this before--but that didn't mean she didn't know what it meant.

"...Someone dying." Reala's deep voice had never sounded so chillingly solemn and mysterious. It evaporated into the room, leaving a thick, oppressing cloud over the entire apartment. NiGHTS's face turned white underneath his hand.

Tiana silently stepped a little closer, clutching one fist to her chest. This was impossible. It couldn't be real. This wasn't happening. Not to her. This couldn't happen to _her_. Not here. It happened in other areas--other areas just like this. But never right in her own building.

The demeanor between the three of them was changed entirely. Tiana found herself actually drawing closer to Reala for protection. He was the only one of them who didn't seem scared or shocked--just alert and ready to spring into action.

It times to come, she would find herself looking back on this moment and wondering whether NiGHTS would have reacted the same way. Would NiGHTS have been instantly ready to protect her? Would he even have been able to make her feel comfortable?

The illusion--their smiling, cheerful illusion of stability and security had been suddenly yanked out from underneath them. And Reala was the only one they could turn to now.

(-)

At three-thirty, her mother came tearing through the door, scooping her into her arms and pressing her tightly. "Tiana! Oh, Tiana, baby, I'm so sorry!" And while she resented being called "baby", she couldn't help but feel grateful that her mother had at least been worried about her.

Ms. Weaver squeezed her daughter closely, cupping a hand over her head. "Oh...oh my goodness..." she whispered. "You could have been _killed_. And I wouldn't have been here to do anything about it. I would've just come home to find my little daughter dead in the hallway, and...and..."

"I'm okay, Mom," Tiana tried to reassure her. "I'm fine. If I'd heard them coming up here, I would've dialed the emergency line...or jumped out the window...or something..."

"Oh my goodness!" That didn't seem to help at all. Ms. Weaver only burst into tears again. "No. No, this can't happen. A girl your age shouldn't have to go through all this. It isn't fair. It's...it's not fair..."

Tiana decided to just give up and let her mother get all of her nerve-wracked emotions out.

Things were slowly beginning to calm down now, though there was still a squad of cop cars outside. The man downstairs had been transported to a hospital, and thanks to the quick reactions of the Panzini couple on the first floor, the word was that he would live...though he now faced up to twenty-five years in prison for possession of illegal substances. The police were now intensely focused on combing the apartment for evidence to find and catch the client who had shot him. NiGHTS had gone down to the first floor to help comfort the tiny Panzini children, and Reala was helping with the search by hovering above the crime scene and nudging them in the right directions.

"And to think...that man's still walking the streets in this neighborhood..." Ms. Weaver was still trembling, even when she finally relinquished her hold on her daughter and fell into the recliner. "I shouldn't be leaving you all alone like this... You're almost an adult now, but...not even an adult should have to go through this alone..."

"I wasn't alone," Tiana tried to explain again. "I had Rea--"

"Your little flying fantasy creatures can't help you now!" Ms. Weaver suddenly snapped. "This is the _real world_, Tiana--not some exciting adventure game where you get to try again if you didn't do it right the first time! Things like this happen! People get _killed_! You've got to think about that!"

_I _do _think about that..._ Tiana mentally replied. _Though...today might have been the first day that I actually did..._

Ms. Weaver let her heavy, graying head fall down into her hands. This was all her fault. She'd married Daniel...she'd stood by him, even when she had reasonable doubts about his innocence. She let him stay for too long. She was up to her neck in debt. She couldn't get a good enough job to pay for any better living arrangements. And she couldn't even be here when her own daughter needed her the most. Everything was just overwhelming her. Everything that no one else could understand. "...There are no second chances," her haggard voice whispered, between her bony fingers. "One life is all we have, Tiana."

(-)

The next day, NiGHTS was gone. Tiana awoke to the now-familiar sight of Reala sitting in front of her window, silently playing his invisible lyre while covered in shiny Awakers. It was kind of comforting and reassuring now, to see him like this, without NiGHTS scaring them away and making him angry. She wished she could be an Awaker. They always looked so peaceful and content, snuggling around him. If they had had mouths, she was sure they would be smiling.

Reala let his instrument vanish once again and solidly stared down into her face. Though seeing his face like this before used to fill her heart with chills, it didn't faze her at all now. _What's going on now? _She simply thought.

"It's time to go," he told her, his voice cold and emotionless. A few of the Awakers floated up off of him when he spoke.

"Go where?" Tiana sat up and rubbed the sleepers out of her eyes. Glancing over at her alarm clock, she noticed that it was actually five-thirty in the morning again. Why did this seem familiar...?

"Your next portal has just opened," Reala clarified, floating up off the end of the cot and scattering the Awakers resting there. "It's time to go."

Tiana remained silent. It was happening again, she realized. He was...different. He wasn't yelling at her for forgetting about the portals again. He wasn't in such a big rush to reclaim his realm anymore. He wasn't annoyed and frustrated with her non-compliance. And for that reason alone, she was ten times more willing to go along with him. Actually, looping through the sky and beating the snot out of a bunch of Voidables sounded very refreshing right now.

She smiled. "Okay. Just wait here while I get ready."

(-)

And then, only one hour later, Tiana was forced to break their silent peace treaty. "Are you _insane_?!"

Reala turned his head back to face her, one eyelid raised in annoyance.

"This is Johnson Street! The same street where the man who shot the guy downstairs was last seen! Are you trying to get me _killed_?!"

Reala just shrugged a bit and turned back around, unconcerned. "This is where your portal is. I didn't choose where it appeared. And just because he was last seen here doesn't mean he's still here. If he had any brains in his head, he'd have gotten the heck out of here as fast as he could. But I wouldn't put it past him, being a human and all..." He glided ahead off the dirty, broken sidewalk, following his detection of the portal's presence. "And you didn't have any objections earlier this morning. You were all set to just hop into the portal at a moment's notice. Why should any of that change now?!"

Tiana sighed. _Great. I've got him started now. I know I'm not really alone...but to anyone else, it looks like I'm here alone. I'm an easy target..._

She shivered as she carefully stepped past the drab old houses with paint peeling off and the warped chain link fences barring off driveways in which piles of rotting boxes were stacked. She wished she could float down the middle of the street like Reala, but she wouldn't be able to just fly out of the way if a car approached. Thankfully, not many people liked to come down this street, even in cars.

Tiana wrinkled her nose as a sharp and steamy scent wafted by it. "Ick...something around here really stinks."

"That would be your portal," Reala announced, casually flipping open the nearest manhole cover.

"I don't remember the other ones smelling like _that_..." Tiana quickly glanced down the road before stepping into the street. She stopped just at the edge of the round hole, beside him, and looked down. And there it was--a purple-and-black atmospheric distortion, swirling and churning through the air just below. The awful stench was stronger, seeping out from the sewer below.

"Oh, _ewwwwwww_!!" Tiana couln't help but shriek. "I have to go in the _sewer_?! There's _no _way! I'd rather go jump in Gullport Harbor! Can't I just go jump in Gullport Harbor?!" She shot a questioning glance over at Reala, but he was looking past her into the portal, his forehead furrowed in a familiar ticked-off expression.

"I mean, I don't understand..." Tiana spoke out, turning back down to the dark and smelly depths. "If I'm the one who creates these portals, why are they all appearing in places I'd never go in million years? Why aren't they showing up in bookstores or at the mall? I wish I knew how I controlled the--_aaaaaaaaaugh_!!"

An instant later, Tiana found herself hurtling downwards, headfirst, through the hole, Reala's cold, rock-hard hand clenched over her shoulder. She squeezed her eyes shut as the dark, swirling colors surrounded her and everything instantly faded to black. The pain of those long, sharp fingers on her shoulder dissipated. She couldn't be sure if Reala had actually separated from her, or she just couldn't feel it anymore, but whatever had happened, she was definitely grateful.

Her speeding flight slowed to the same gentle descent as before. The awful smell drifted away. It felt cooler all of a sudden...then it started to get a little chilly. Tiana hadn't worn her jacket today, since it was pretty warm outside right now...but she was beginning to wish that she had brought it just in case. It was getting colder. And colder still. She felt herself shiver a little. Why was it so cold?! The portal hadn't been cold at all last time...

And then, at last, she felt her feet nudging against the solid ground...and the soles of her sneakers crunching against something. She shivered a bit again, and gently rolled her eyes open. Her mouth fell open in shock, a puff of white steam escaping from it.

A blank, white expanse stretched before her...sharp, icy points stabbing up at the cloudy sky. Everything in sight was coated with a heavy powder of snow. The bitterly cold air stung painfully against her exposed skin. She began to feel her limbs numbing...cracking...rooting to the spot.

"Y-Y-You...you didn't say we were going to the freakin' _North Pole_!!" she finally managed to call out, clamping her arms together across her chest for warmth.

Reala was standing in front of her, apparently unaffected by the temperature. He calmly turned back around at the sound of her voice. "South Pole," he corrected. "We're in Antarctica. Everyone always gets that mixed up."

"W-Well, _whatever_! It doesn't matter! I-I-I'm going to freeze to death in two s-s-s-seconds!!"

"I didn't hear you complaining about the heat at the reef."

"Th-This is different! I could seriously die!!" The terrible stinging pain was growing even more intense. Tiana's heart pounded into a panic. _Oh my God! I'm going to get frostbite and have to get my fingers chopped off...or my arms...or my legs! Nevermind that--I'm going to get frostbite across my entire body, and there'll be nothing they can do at all! I'm...I'm going to die here..._

All of a sudden, the concept of dying really terrified her. She'd never thought too much about it before--she'd just be a spirit, floating around somewhere. But now...she desperately wanted to cling onto this world and stay here for as long as she could. There were, actually...some things that she'd miss. Before she even knew it, a couple of tears had dripped out of her eyes, instantly freezing over her cheeks. _Why...? I...I haven't cried in a long time..._

Reala groaned and turned his back to her. "Darn Ideya of Purity--it always turns everyone into a crybaby. Here."

Tiana was startled out of her panicked despair as she scarcely felt something light colliding with her head. Yanking it away, she was even more amazed to see that it was actually a stretchy red jacket with long white sleeves and checkered cuffs.

Reala placed his floating blue hands on his waist, his back still turned to her. His bare, narrow arms bent to the sides. "I don't have blood or internal organs like you humans, so the temperature doesn't affect _me_."

Tiana hesitated for a moment, staring incredulously down at the piece of clothing in her hands before quickly slipping it on. _Here we go again_, she thought, _it's another one of those things..._

Slowly, she was beginning to see what NiGHTS had meant. Though what came out of Reala's mouth was "Here, take my jacket--I don't need it because I'm better than you," what he actually meant was "Here, take my jacket--you need it more than I do, and I'm worried about you." Tiana smiled...before she realized exactly what was going on.

She tugged at the flaps of the jacket--but they only just barely covered her sides. She let her arms drop back down, to see the sleeve cuffs falling past the ends of her fingers. "B-But this is way too small!" she objected, hopelessly trying to bring the flaps closer together. "And these sleeves are way too long!"

"Well, stretch it out, then!" Reala finally turned to snap at her. "You can't do much about making the sleeves smaller, but you could at least stretch the jacket out!"

_Oh, yeah! _Tiana recalled. _His clothes stretch. I forgot about that. _She grabbed one edge of the jacket in both hands and stretched it out, horizontally. The soft, light fabric molded outward in her hand, just like clay. _What in the world is this thing made out of? _She wondered. _It's not plastic...or spandex... It's really resilient, yet soft and comfortable, and malleable... Where can _I _get some clothes made like this? Ah, well, whatever it is, it's probably something that doesn't exist on Earth. It's only found in...wherever Reala came from. The Dreaming World? Nightopia? The sky? The edge of the universe? The heavens? He's certainly not from Heaven, that's for sure..._

Tiana had been following him forward, through the crunching layer of snow as she stretched out the folds of the jacket to make it big enough to wrap around her. She was just about to ask him, when he suddenly stopped short, and she nearly ran into his black-bandaged back.

She shivered. "U-Um..." she began to realize for herself. "This isn't really helping that much. It's so thin...i-it's not going to protect me. I-I-I'm still freezing to d-death..."

Reala finally responded...by whipping around and shoving a hand in her face.

Tiana gave a larger start in shock and confusion. _What the...?! Why is he shoving his hand at me like... Ooohhhhhhhh!_

Reala watched the enlightenment dawn over her and groaned agian, stepping back a little and lifting his other hand as well.

"Well, we haven't done this in a while!" Tiana argued. "Of course I'm going to forget about it! I forget things all the time!"

"I know. It's easy to tell."

"So you should've been expecting me not to remember!"

"Just hurry up and Dualize already, will you?"

"Okay, okay, I'm going!" Tiana raised her own arms as well, though she had to pull the stretchy white sleeves up to expose her hands, and held her palms to Reala's Immediately, she began to feel warmer as the white light enveloped her and joined them together. The stinging bite of the cold faded away...and at last, she felt comfortable, at a normal, reasonable temperature once again. _Oh...that's right_, she realized. _When we're Dualized, I'm inside of his body. And since the temperature doesn't affect him..._

She smiled a bit to herself as the Dualization completed. She felt herself rushing downwards, off the edge of a cliff...then pulling up and gliding smoothly through the sky. It felt...a little bit different, she thought. More settled. Maybe she was just completely comfortable with the concept and mechanics of Dualizing by now. It felt so natural all of a sudden.

"Uh, so..." she began to ask. "...Is there going to be another one of those oversized boss Voidables again?"

"Most likely," Reala replied, as he angled them upwards through the first set of rings. "This is still only your second reality. And the ideya of Intelligence and Purity are not as strong as the other three."

"So which one will I get once we kill all the Voidables here?"

"How should I know that? That's all up to you."

Tiana mentally groaned. "So that's another one of those 'you create it yourself' things again? I really don't get that. Like I said, I would've made the portals appear in completely different places, and I don't know anything about..."

"Are you ever going to concentrate on _flying_, or do I have to go through this whole ridiculous reality by myself?!"

"Oh!" Tiana stretched her legs--or Reala's legs--backwards, pushing them forward with a bit more power. Strange...she usually felt some kind of tugging sensation when he yanked her along in his body. But then again, she hadn't really been thinking about flying at all. Maybe she was just...giving him consent.

She felt air rushing over her as they spun into a drill dash again...but it was no longer the stabbing cold arctic air that had nearly killed her. They whirled easily over an iceberg and through a series of half-rings before they ran into the first of this reality's Voidables. Thick, wipsy black ropes reminiscent of the last second-level Voidable boss shot up towards them...but with their combined efforts, they easily avoided their grasps.

Tiana found that she was actually getting better at maneuvering through the air. It all felt so natural. Maybe it was because she had two ideya now. All she could feel was the concentration...the focus on their movements and surroundings...the placement of rings. To her surprise, Tiana even thought she saw a few Awakers lazily floating in the air as they reeled past. But she didn't need to ask. Instantly, she knew--they had always been here, of course. They were everywhere. And just like Reala, they were unaffected by the temperature.

Together, Tiana and Reala dove headfirst onto the slippery edge of the another large ice cliff, speeding downwards through three more rings, as if on a water slide. They flew off the end of the slide, avoiding the lashing arms of a few more rope-like Voidables...and now that she could get a close-up view of their ends, Tiana was surprised to see thin metal prongs sticking out. They were _wires_!

She felt Reala's body spiraling into a drill dash and willingly joined him. And an instant later, they were crashing through the large black ball of the first anchor point.

_Gee, that was fast_, Tiana thought as they flew off again, swerving up and down through rings and replenishing the dash energy. And it was good thing too, because the next set of obstacles involved dashing quickly through pairs of drifting icebergs before they smashed together and blocked the path. Tiana's heart raced as they just barely avoided being caught between the very last set. Dripping black spear Voidables poked up at them in the next area, along with a few more whipping wires.

And as Tiana again fell into the comfortable rhythmn of zooming up and diving through the formations of rings in the sky, she began to notice an odd pressure over her feet, hands, and head. Automatically, she pressed her eyes closed, trying to identify the problem, and found that she could actually project her sight outside of herself somehow. She could see Reala exactly as he was right now, drifting past the arctic landscape...and she couldn't stop herself from bursting into laughter.

"Hehahahahahahahaha! Oh...eheheh..."

No response...or at least not yet.

Tiana just kept giggling, her focus on their flight slowly slipping away. She was surprised he wasn't yelling at her yet.

Though Reala might not have been able to _feel_ the cold weather, he wasn't completely immune to its effects, especially zooming through the air like this. Long, pointy icicles had formed off the toe ends of his feet, backwards from his fingernails...and on the ends of his sensors.

"Aheeheehee...th-that's a good look for you."

"I can't hear you," he at last spoke up.

_Oh_, Tiana realized. _He uses those things to hear, and those icicles must be blocking them! _She plunged her consciousness back into her own body-possessive state and began to move her arm up towards the back of her head...but it halted there a second later.

"No," Reala firmly told her. "I think I prefer it that way."

"Arrrgh..." Tiana grumbled, retreating back into their familiar glide. "Jeez...I was just trying to help."

As they twirled suddenly around another large icicle hanging off the end of a cliff, Tiana realized that she wasn't actively directing this ship anymore. Reala couldn't even hear her unconscious requests of "let's go this way", or "I want to go down". _Alright, now this is going too far_, she bitterly thought. _This isn't "Dualizing" anymore--this is more like a game of follow-the-leader. Does he expect me to just go along with everything he does?!_

Tiana was about to protest and try to fight back against his movements, but slowly began to back away from the idea when she thought a little more about it. _But...if I put up too much of a resistence, I might tear out of Dualization. And I'd fall out of the sky from this height... And if the fall doesn't kill me, I'd definitely freeze to death, jacket or no jacket. And I'd fail to destroy the anchor points in time. _She still didn't know what happened if they failed the reality...the portal might never come back, and she might be trapped here forever.

Tiana grumbled angrily to herself, even as she felt her body gracefully twirling through the air as if nothing was wrong. "Reala...I hate you," she fumed, taking advantage of the fact that he couldn't hear her. "I can't believe I ever thought you might not be so bad. You're the biggest jerk I've ever met in my life."

Reala innocently hummed as he drill dashed the stick end of a nearby spear Voidable...and then crashed straight into the second anchor point.

_Oh welll..._ Tiana sighed. _At least I don't have to listen to his complaining about me all the time. _She closed her eyes again, resigning herself to another boring lap around the blank whiteness of Antarctica.

They sailed over another cliff, exactly like the previous three...but when she got a look at the other side of it, she couldn't help but gape. It was another magical moment of complete awe and wonder. For a moment, Tiana forgot all about her situation. It was just so...amazing.

She had gotten a first-hand experience of the harsh, unrelenting weather of the South Pole--and so that was why she was so amazed that there were actually living beings in this place. Of course, she knew there were animals in Antarctica--polar bears...and penguins... But it was astounding that they were actually _here_. Tiana could see groups of black dots below them, shuffling back and forth, flapping their flippers, and tossing their little beaked heads. They were very much alive and thriving in this biting cold environment--small drops of life and energy against the blank, barren landscape. It existed, even here. It existed across the entire planet. And it would always continue to exist, somewhere. With dedication...and perseverance...

Before she even realized what was going on, Tiana felt a sudden drop in the pit of her stomach as her body fell into a steep, speeding dive. It spun, rapidly and powerfully, straight towards the ground in the middle of the penguin groups. With a crackling split, the ground broke apart, sharp chunks of ice drifting around her, and immediately, her body slowed as it pulled up again. She felt her legs merging.

_We're underwater_, Tiana dimly realized. Light glowed softly from above, filtered through the thin sheet of ice at its surface. And though Reala simply barreled forward, through the next line of rings hidden underneath, Tiana didn't see them at all. Her wide, awestruck eyes were fixated on the little gray creatures flickering past her current field of vision...surrounding her at every turn. _Fish...?_

It seemed even more shocking that there were actually live fish swimming around underneath all this ice. How did their tiny hearts keep from freezing to a stop? Tiana even thought she saw a long, gray, spotted seal twisting this way and that through the icy water in the distance. But she didn't get much longer to marvel at the creatures' existence.

Her body was suddenly wrenched back upwards, spiraling up and crashing through another weak layer of ice. She broke back into the same smooth, rushing flight, feeling her legs stretching back as Reala's body re-formed itself. Unfortunately, those pointy chunks of ice were still gripping tightly to the ends of his sensors.

Tiana simply followed his movements through the next set of rings, paralooping a few spear Voidables and avoiding the wires. Suddenly, it didn't bother her anymore--her mind was on different matters now. They zoomed up, over a giant ice mountain, a long, deep chasm running through it. Three small Voidables were just up ahead.

"What the heck?!" Tiana couldn't help but call out at the sight of the odd creatures. These Voidables were wispy black spray cans, squinting at them with white-hot eyes. They floated in a "V" formation, as if to block their path. Tiana almost burst out laughing at the absurdity of the entire situation...but that was before they got close enough.

The spray-can Voidables all pressed their caps in at the same moment, spewing clouds of poisonous black gas all around them. There was no time for Reala to react and swerve up around it--they plunged straight into the thick smog.

Tiana automatically felt like coughing, but she couldn't, since Reala couldn't hear her request. The terrible tickling feeling grew heavier and heavier inside her chest, until it was stinging, painfully. Desperately, she writhed back and forth, trying to subdue it somehow...but nothing was working. Hot tears began to stab at her eyes.

Her body was dragged upwards, around in a paraloop, sucking in all of the smog. But it was too late. With one final violent push, Tiana forced herself back down...and all of a sudden, she felt something burst. Instantly, the freezing air collided with her skin, rushing up over her. A horrified panic shot through her entire body. She opened her eyes and her mouth...but her mind wasn't on the pain of the pent-up cough any longer. A piercing shriek burst out of her as her body plummeted down...into the long, dark crack of the chasm below.

Reala gasped, wrenching himself to a halt when he felt the awful, sharp tearing in his chest. The girl had just un-Dualized herself, like an idiot. He should've known better. She was falling now. There was only one thing to do.

"Grrrgh..." Reala frustratingly reached behind his head, breaking the icicles off his sensors and squeezing them out of their numbed state. If he didn't hurry up and Dualize with her again, they'd never get to the anchor point in time.

An awful, high-pitched scream faded into being, along with the deep gush of the air around him.

"Tiana!" he finally called out, diving down after her in the fastest drill dash he could muster up. He didn't really know why he called her name. Perhaps, just to let her know that he could hear her now. But none of that mattered.

Her curled-up form was being swallowed by the darkness as she fell further down into the chasm, her long brown hair flapping above her like a flag.

It didn't take long to catch up. Reala watched her slip down between the pieces of the iceberg, just a few yards below him. But as soon as he reached the opening, a powerful gust of wind rushed up at him, holding him back and suspending his flight. For a moment, he fought desperately against it, pushing down into the crushing backwards force with all of his might...but it was a useless battle. However, there _was _something he could do...to break through this barrier and slip easily through the streams of air.

_Oh, God, not _that_! _He thought. But it was the only way. He would have to do it. Reala clenched his teeth together, squeezing his eyes shut as the wind blasted back against his face...and then, began to stretch himself forward.

Tiana was already halfway down the chasm, as the dark, hard ground continued to thunder towards her. She had stopped screaming by now--only because she didn't have enough air anymore. _I'm going to die_, her mind raced. _I'm going to die now. I don't want to die! I don't want to die..._

She willingly whirled past everything that had happened during her lifetime--all of her memories, no matter what they were...trying to hold onto them...desperately trying to hold on to whatever small foothold she had left in this world. This world...the earth...she didn't want to leave. _I don't want to die!!_

And then, all of a sudden, it came. Tiana gave out another weak cry of alarm as her body suddenly slammed against something...and then was violently yanked to the side.

_What the...?! _It hadn't hurt. Whatever she'd just fallen onto was firm, but stretchy and light. She wasn't dead, was she?

Tiana opened her eyes...and kept them open, all the way, her mouth dropping open with them. She was sitting on some kind of long, red-and-white, snake-like creature as it coiled gently up through the air, out of the chasm. The front part of it was actually wrapped in black ribbons, while the tail end was completely red, though it had a few black fin-like decorations sticking up.

Tiana rose back into the sky where the spray-can Voidables had been, still staring at the strange creature below her in awe and confusion. And then...it stretched up, curling its long, thin neck around to look at her. For the first time, she could see its sharp, blue claws. Its head was blue as well, and surrounded by a red-and-black mane. It had a small, lion-like muzzle, though the top of its head was thin and streamlined. It brought its head closer and opened its angled eyes. They were bright, sparkling, aqua blue eyes...with black, curved lines running through them. Tiana couldn't help but marvel at the creature even more now...now that she knew what it was.

"_Reala_?"

He didn't say a word, though she was sure he would have been able to talk...and simply moved his head in closer. She lifted her arm...reaching out her hand in compliance. And he nudged his soft blue muzzle against it.

A spray of bright white sparkles burst out from the spot where they touched. Tiana felt her body slowly uncurling once again...fading into that warm, comfortable horizontal flying position. There was no more pressure. It was...safe now. The lines of communication had been repaired.

_We have to get to that last anchor point--now! _Reala thought in to her as he began to push his now re-molded body forward as fast as it would go without breaking into a drill dash.

_Oh, yeah!_ Tiana suddenly realized. _Oh gosh, how much time is left?! After all that, we might not get there in time!_

_A fair amount_, Reala answered. _But there's no more time for dilly-dallying and playing around with the Voidables. We'll just have to fly past them, if any more show up. _

_...So you've finally stopped ignoring me? _

_Yes. _

Though his inner voice was hard and bitter, Tiana was surprised that he even admitted it. She'd thought he'd say something like "I wasn't ignoring you! I was trying to help my own concentration and blah, blah, blah..."

"Just move it!" he snapped back at her out loud when he noticed her thoughts wandering. "This is still a dire situation! I let you assimilate back with my body again, but you better pull your own weight!"

"Okay, okay..." Tiana was forced to simply follow him again for the time being...though it was much more comforting, knowing that he would be able to hear her if she did need to cough or do something else again. Tiana stared ahead and focused on getting through every single ring that came careening towards them. Reala had used up all of his drill dash power zooming down to catch her, so it was extremely important now that they didn't miss anything.

They swerved up away from another group of spray-can Voidables and looped through a glob of interlocking rings. Tiana noticed the number 36 flash in her mind for a moment before they glided back down again. Thirty-six. That should be good enough.

The final giant, smoky black ball was wedged between two pointy pieces of ice just ahead. Encouraged by the sight of it, Tiana pushed herself forward faster, and Reala spun himself into a drill dash, accordingly. They streaked in a graceful arc across the pale blue sky, then dove straight down, violently smashing through the ball's surface. It burst apart, its pieces dissolving into wisps of smoke around them...which then curled up and died themselves.

"_Yes_!" Tiana called out, in the same tone she ususally reserved for private victories against the latest Battle Fantasy World ogre. But a warning chill from Reala reminded her that it wasn't a victory just yet. _Oh...yeah...the big guy. We've still got to do that, haven't we?_

Reala didn't answer again, but she could feel his exasperated annoyance with her.

A low rumbling sensation started up underneath them again, and Reala nudged her to move back away from the long chunks of ice. Sure enough, only a few seconds later, some monstrous black thing came crashing up from underneath the stalagmites, completely shattering them into pointy flying ice shards. They dove away from a few in the process.

Tiana stared in confusion at the new second-level Voidable. Its giant, square-shaped body was trapped in the hole it had formed in the ice. One long bent arm rigidly stretched up at them, with a cupped claw on the end. Its narrow, blazing white eyes glared up at them from the edge of its box-like body. "What the heck is _that_ thing?" Tiana asked. It definitely wasn't another rope-squid.

"Burizzon," Reala simply replied, squeezing his sensors to keep them from freezing again.

"That's its _name_!" Tiana protested. "But what the heck _is_ it?!"

A bunch of round, smooth chunks of ice suddenly blew up into the air around it, and it lowered its claw-arm. They moved in a little closer, and that's when Tiana realized._ It's not an animal. The last second-level Voidable was a net. This has to be an inanimate object too. _And she was right. She squinted at its arm a little closer and noticed that it was actually comprised of two long rectangular sections, joined together by giant bolts. _It's...one of those big construction shovel things!_

"Took you long enough," Reala grumbled, yanking her out of the way as the giant steam shovel Voidable lashed at them with its claw.

"Oh, be quiet. It's hard to see when the thing's completely black like that. Besides, parts of it keep moving around, and I never would have thought..."

"There's no time for this!" Reala snapped back at her. "We have less time to defeat this thing too, because of you tearing out! Don't argue with me!"

Tiana was dying to snap back that the whole tearing out thing had been his fault in the first place, but...he did have a point. It wouldn't help to have a yelling battle while a giant black steam shovel was attacking them.

"We have to do something with these chunks of ice!" Reala called, zooming upwards and grabbing onto the nearest one.

Tiana glanced back down at the living steam shovel creature as its arm began to swivel around towards them again. "Shoot it into its claw!" she suddenly realized.

Startled, Reala dashed the ice ball, sending it spinning away about three yards away from the claw.

_Jeez_, Tiana mentally complained. _You have terrible aim_.

"Shut up," Reala replied. "I wasn't ready for that."

Tiana concentrated as they flew over to grab the next one, avoiding another swipe of the claw. Automatically, the ball was spinning them around in a vertical circle...she had to really stay on her toes to push against it at the right moment.

At last, they dashed the ball straight down into the Voidable's scoop claw. It only dipped a little downwards with the weight, then continued trying to stab them with its shoveling prongs.

Reala let out a frustrated sigh. "This is going to take forever!" And so, they zipped around the area, grabbing every ice ball thay could reach and angling it down into Burizzon's claw. It was like a strange mid-air game of basketball, and after a while, Tiana even began to enjoy it. They came to an unspoken agreement that Reala would do most of the flying and dodging, while she did most of the aiming and shooting. It was a good balance of their abilities, and thankfully, it wasn't very long before the steam shovel's claw was bowing dangerously under the weight of the ice balls piled inside of it.

"_Now_ what?!" Tiana desperately asked, searching for some other device to latch on to. The chunks of ice had stopped shooting up from the ground all of a sudden.

"Break its arm off, of course!" Reala turned downwards, towards the top of the pile, and now, Tiana saw what he meant. She pushed her own power downwards along with him. Burizzon was too loaded down by the weight to move out of the way.

Together, they grabbed the ball of ice at the very top of the pile...and dashed downwards against it with all of their combined strength. With a loud snap, the claw arm burst apart, crashing through the ice below. And then, the rest of its body simply followed. With a terrible deep, grinding noise, the Voidable's giant square body and what remained of its arm burst apart, just like an anchor point, curling and wisping back out of existence.

Tiana closed her eyes. She felt settled, somehow...perhaps it was the same sense of accomplishment and peace she'd felt after defeating the first Voidable boss and preserving the reef. But this settled feeling was a bit different. As she felt her body gently drifting along through the portal, something was gradually slipping away...but it was being replaced by something even better.

It wasn't really the same atmosphere of peace and protection around her...but something else, from within her. Some kind of knowledge...a firm and fixated knowledge of this world. She knew. It would go on. It had to. Like the miraculous existence of the fish below the ice...or the groups of penguins huddled together. It would persevere. And there was no question or doubt in her mind about it. Somehow, death didn't seem like such an incredibly terrifying concept anymore. Because everything would go on. It wouldn't disappear. Tiana had no idea how she suddenly knew all of this. It was almost as if some divine being had come down and told her. But she knew. And that was all that mattered now.

Tiana felt her feet pushing against the ground again and gently opened her eyes, ready to face whatever lied before her now.

She was again standing in the middle of the street...but there was no open manhole cover in front of her. In fact, the street didn't even look the same. The tar underneath her was smooth, shiny, and new. The sidewalks were made of clean, straight, brown pavement, completely unblemished. Houses were spread further apart, their bright, cheerful colors beckoning to her...and none of them were too tall or overcrowded. Even the spaces between them, too large to be alleyways, were bright and comfortable.

There were no more broken chain link fences, no more offensive graffiti sprayed across filthy stone walls, no more bony stray dogs snapping at scraps of litter in the gutters. People walked casually down the sidewalk, smiling and calling to each other. Even small children were allowed to wander unrestrained through their back yards.

_What the...? _Tiana wondered for a moment. _There's nowhere like _this_ in east Bellbridge_. But then, she remembered what had happened last time, and smiled. _No...this is Johnson Street_. And right she was.

The ideal, pristine neighborhood began to fade back out into the grungy, narrow, deserted environment of that notorious street...the people disappearing, the houses growing and squishing together, the colors fading, the grime and pieces of trash reappearing.

And then, Tiana looked up...to see Reala again hovering in front of her, cupping one hand over a round, floating, red object, its crystalline points shining from within. "The Ideya of Courage," his deep and chilling voice announced as his narrow eyes probed its depths. "Finally."

Tiana's heart gave a start at the sight. NiGHTS's low, serious voice suddenly flashed through her mind. _"Ree was a Nightmaren..." _Her own uncertain voice from the last time. _"For a moment there, I almost thought you weren't going to give it back to me." _Her heart was beginning to pound.

That thing...that thing was more than just a colored orb. She _needed_ it. It had only just come out of her...and if she never got it back...

_"...evil, dark creatures of the Dreaming World who steal ideya from people..." _

No...no... No matter what, she couldn't let that happen! She'd scream! She'd go insane! A piece of her mind--a piece of her _soul_--was being torn away from her!

_Evil creature...dark creature who steals ideya...steals ideya..._

"_Give that back_!!" Tiana finally screamed out, lunging at Reala and violently tearing the ideya out of his grasp. He fell back against her attack, too shocked to even react.

Tiana softly stepped back down against the bumpy, patched pavement, holding the glowing red orb in her hands. Instantly, she felt completely relieved and calmed now that the piece of her heart was back within her own hands. And so, she pressed it closer, letting it blend and melt into her chest, just like the other one.

She felt a burst of inspiration and strength as soon as it touched her. For a moment, she felt like she could do anything in the world that she wanted, and almost felt like running off to do those things right now. She could run through the streets to the local bookstore. She could hop on an upside-down roller coaster. She could go sky diving. She could get on a stage in front of the whole world and belt out her favorite song. She could go around school jabbering about comics and video games, acting like a goofball, and not caring what anyone else thought. Then, a moment later, the surge faded away to a dull ache, and she couldn't believe she'd ever thought about doing those things.

It was almost a full minute before she again noticed her surroundings and the oddly stricken jester creature still leaning slightly backwards in the air in front of her. "Um, so..." she at last spoke up, her voice completely calm again, as if the attack had never happened. "This street used to look like _that_?"

Reala's face immediately fell back into his usual frown, and he pulled his body back up straight, crossing his arms. "No. This time, the ideya showed you a vision of what this street _could _be like. If you human beings stopped destroying things. If there were no Voidables in the world. If everyone paid attention to the reality around them. If eveyone stopped living in their own happy little fantasy worlds all the time and started caring about their own. If everyone could understand their own world and work to improve it instead of just hating it and rejecting it. Like you..."

Tiana fell silent, gazing up at him with awe. Something had begun to creep across his clear blue eyes as he spoke. Something akin to sorrow and despondency.

_Like me? _Tiama dimly wondered. _Well...I guess that's true. I don't care about the world. But..._ Her train of thought wandered off. The next line had been, "why should I?"...but she knew why she should. She had seen what it would be like. She had seen the things that were happening to the world. She had said to him in the beginning "the world has never done anything for me." But now, she was beginning to wonder if that really was true. These new feelings...these "ideya" hadn't come from Reala...or even from her soul by itself. Each ideya had been produced by her feelings within a reality. They needed both, to come into being.

"Of course, that means the vision you saw was a complete impossibility," Reala continued, whirling away from her and beginning to float back towards the sidewalk in the direction of her house. "There can never be a world without _any_ Voidables at all. As long as the Dreaming World exists. Just as long as this world exists, there will always be Nightmaren."

Tiana had been simply following him out of the street, as usual, but he stopped suddenly at the word "Nightmaren." She shuddered a bit in apprehension. _"Nightmaren"..._

He kept his back turned towards her, coldly. "...Why did you attack me like that?"

A terrible, icy chill went through Tiana's heart, rooting her body to the spot. She'd never heard his voice so grave and dangerously low before. She readied her body, half-expecting him to attack her back. "Um...w-well..." Her own voice sounded so tiny and insignificant in comparison. "You were...a Nightmaren...and stole ideya from people...so you can't blame me for being a little afraid...that you were going to steal it...a-and last time, I..."

"So NiGHTS told you that, did he?"

Tiana choked her voice back, her breath knotting up within her. Whatever courage she had just recieved from her new red ideya had apparently deserted her.

Reala's voice was louder this time, even closer to breaking into verbal blows. He clenched one hand into a tight fist, trying to disperse some of his rage. "Don't you listen to him again. You can't be talking to him all the time and believing everything that he says. Do you understand that?! It's very important."

"Y-Yes," Tiana squeaked out, slowly shrinking away from his back. "I won't."

"Good," Reala's voice was still as firm as ever, though his fist relaxed again. "I won't let him interfere," he softly muttered, though Tiana was close enough to catch it.

_Interfere with what?_ she wondered, and her heart felt even more nervous and uncomfortable than before.

"Well, let's get going!" Reala spoke out, his voice suddenly back to normal. He whirled around to face her and began to float a bit backwards. "We can't just stand around here all day. And hey--you give _that_ back!"

"Huh?" Tiana looked down at herself and was shocked to notice that she was still wearing his jacket. "Oh! Uh, sorry. I kind of forgot about it." She slipped it off and carefully handed it to him, afraid that he might bite her head off about it.

He didn't say anything, though he did scoff at the stretched-out flaps as he squished them back into shape.

Why did NiGHTS choose this time to leave? She wondered. Right now, she desperately needed somebody else to talk to. And she dreaded returning to her own house and being alone with Reala for the rest of the day, until her mother got home from work. Normally, things were supposed to get _better_ after completing a reality...but Tiana found herself suddenly more confused and apprehensive than ever.

(-)

Thankfully, Reala went to sleep early again that night--even earlier than last time. Tiana wondered how _anyone _could go to sleep at only eight o' clock, but she was grateful to have the last three hours of the day left to herself.

He hadn't been bothering her, but the atmosphere in the house had been heavy and unbearable while he was around. Actually, it was even worse to have him purposely ignoring her than to have him nagging and insulting her all day.

Tiana sighed deeply as she plopped back down onto her bed. Her mother was still out in the parlor watching TV, and she'd needed some quiet time to herself. At least the uncomfortable pressure had lifted now that Reala was asleep. She glanced back towards the window at his slight form, somewhat curled and clutching her aqua blanket tightly as he softly breathed.

_Here we go again. Every time I start to feel like I can trust him, something always happens and completely shatters it. And whenever it shatters, it always builds back up again after. _

She could easily recall all the times today when she had felt uncomfortable--when he couldn't hear her, when he'd held her ideya, when his voice went dark, when he'd muttered something about interfering. But then, she remembered all the other times--when he'd given her his jacket, when he'd morphed into a snake-dragon to rescue her, that forlorn look on his face during his last speech, that hint of a real smile he had shown her before... This morning, she'd even felt confident enough to instantly come to the portal without a second thought.

At last, Tiana turned away, sucking in her breath and focusing back on the book propped against a pillow in front of her. She had made this decision, tossing her mundane school life away for this strange experience. And she was going to have to follow it out, no matter what she was really doing.

For a moment, a flicker of that motivating energy leaped across her heart again, from the new ideya inside of her. She didn't have to be so afraid of this world all the time. Even though she didn't yet recognize the effects and simply dove back into her fantasy novel, it was there. And she wasn't ready to give it up again.

(-)

The sky was so dark. Sharp, jagged spikes licked the inky blackness in the distance. The air was thick and slightly dusty. He was high up in the air, but strangely standing against something. Reala looked down, to see that his feet were resting against a platform.

He blinked. The cloudy, unfocused feeling in his head was suddenly beginning to clear up. _It's...the platform. I'm...dreaming about the platform again. _It didn't take him very long to reach lucidity, especially since he'd had this dream before, and he now knew that he was capable of dreaming. The only problem was that he couldn't remember all of it now.

He looked past the platform at the floor. _That floor looks really familiar..._ And then, squinting a little harder at it, he noticed why. The floor's long, square tiles were colored red and black--just like the checkerboard patterns on his sleeves. The same colors of his own sensors. As he focused back on the platform, he noticed that it was designed the same way. Everything in this area around him was colored with red-and-black squares.

_There's something else here, too_, Reala slowly began to recall. _The platform...the platform and...the railing!_

He whirled to the side, and there it was. It was thicker than he expected, the same designs running over it...and for the first time, he noticed that it actually extended downwards, connecting to the side of the platform he was standing on.

Gently, he reached out, resting one hand over it again. It all felt so _familiar_. Reala took a moment just to marvel at these feelings of security and familiarity in silence before turning away again. For a moment, he was surprised to discover another railing on the other side.

_Oh, yeah, that's right_, he dimly remembered. _There was another one. But I never paid much attention to it. _He was determined to pay attention now. Gradually, he reached across with his other arm and placed a hand over that one as well. His arms now extended, though slightly bent, across the platform, between the two railings. They were actually pretty close together.

Reala extended his forearms over the railings, feeling their smooth, cold surfaces through the stretchy fabric of his sleeves. It was strange...the position he was in now... _These seem like...some kinds of armrests. Like this thing is actually...some kind of...giant chair..._

The moment the idea entered his heavy, dazed head, the platform immediately began to take shape. It was looking more and more like a chair every second. But...why was it so high up in the air like this? He never got a chance to figure that out.

Just at that moment, he began to feel a dull tug on the ends of his sensors, and all of his musings about the platform-chair were immediately driven from his mind. At last, he had remembered how the dream ended.

_Behind me! _

In a flash of panicked realization, Reala whipped around, before the pressure could get any worse...and gasped, sharply. An icy coldness stabbed through his chest. He nearly fell backwards off the end of the platform, but he held on tightly by the armrests.

It _was _a chair--he was sure of it now. It had a back, with long, pointed spikes sticking out of the top, just like the surrounding border. Just like everything else, it was colored red-and-black...the colors of his clothing, his sensors, his very identity.

Out of everything he could have thought of to explain the strong living presence behind him, he never would have guessed this. The image was more startling than a monster, a giant Nightmaren, or even Wizeman himself.

There, staring back up at him from the chair with cold, narrowed blue eyes...its pale blusih color immediately standing out from its checkered surroundings...was something even more familiar to him. His own face.


	7. The Time Before

WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG CHAPTER ALERT. DO NOT START READING IF YOU HAVE AN IMPORTANT DATE! Sorry. I really couldn't find a good point to break it up.

And also, an extreme cuteness warnning. There's...a lot of NiGHTS-and-Reala fluff... Once again, Tiana is taking a break while the two brothers have some things to work out. She might be a little suspicious of their relationship, but don't follow her suspicions. NiGHTS will be explaining the whole thing to her in the future.

Sensor rubs are sensor rubs. And that is all they are. The end.

I wonder what was so funny... The world will never know.

And now all the Jackle fans are going to kill me. Really, I don't hate Jackle, and I don't think of him this way under normal circumstances. But I thought it was an appropriate way for him to fit in with the whole framework of this story.

Oh, and I would like to give an extra special thanks to Sandy-the-echidna, who did an adorable fanart of NiGHTS and Reala from this story! If you're reading this, Sandy, THANK YOU!!

NiGHTS, Reala, the Awakers, Jackle, and nearly everything else belong to Sonic Team. I own Tiana. And that's it...

Next chapter is...I have no idea. But I want to take a break from writing this for a little while now. I've been writing nonstop for the past week. Not that I didn't enjoy it, of course! But the next chapter is probably the most important chapter in the entire story, and I _really _can't mess it up... But don't worry, I'm not giving up! I _can't _give up now...

(-)

Chapter 7: The Time Before

"Oh my _gosh_!!" a familiar high-pitched voice shrieked. "Finally!!"

"Hmmmmeh..." Reala groggily lifted his head, shaking it a little and dispersing the pair of Awakers which had been nesting there "_You're _back again?"

"Of course I am!" NiGHTS's thin body stretched over him, apparently forcing himself to ignore the Awakers hovering protectively over his body. "I told you--I'm here to keep an eye on you! And it looks like I got back just in time!"

Reala grumbled as he slowly pulled himself up into a sitting position on the cot, brushing the blanket aside and dangling his legs over the edge. "Out of the six or so people I know in the universe, you are probably the single one I least wanted to see right now."

He was prevented from pounding his brother into the carpeting only because he was still dazed and astounded by the ending of his last dream. How could he meet _himself _in a dream? Wasn't that one of the laws of the Dreaming World? Your physical self should never have contact with your dream-self...

"It doesn't matter--I'm glad I decided to come back here last night!" NiGHTS looked kind of panicked, his deep blue eyes wide and crinkling at the edges. "I can't believe you just completely slept through your ceremony like that!"

"What?!" Reala was fully awake again now. He whirled around, and sure enough, the sun was already blazing through Tiana's bedroom window, leaving patches of light across the opposite wall. He should've realized, by the Awakers floating next to him. There were only three of them--perhaps the very ones which had brought him out of the Dreaming World. They blinked their little black eyes at him as if to say, "Well? Aren't ya gonna play for us?"

He turned back around again, gazing over at the empty, rumpled covers of Tiana's bed. "...Where's the girl?"

"She went to school!" NiGHTS cried, flying around in circles with frenetic worry. "She went to _school_ already! She got up, and got ready, and went off to school, and _you were still sleeping_!!"

The Awakers blinked again, waiting for their answer.

"And I don't see what's the matter with that!" Reala finally snapped back at him as he bent down to retrieve his boots and jacket. "So I accidentally overslept. It happens all the time!"

"No, it does _not_!" NiGHTS objected. "You don't remember--you're not even supposed to _need_ to sleep! If you go to sleep just for fun, you're supposed to automatically wake up just before the sun rises, so you can do your ceremony! If you slept _past _it, that means your body really _needed _the sleep...and that's not right!"

"Whatever," Reala growled. The Awakers finally flew away, knowing that they weren't going to get any lyre music out of him while he was like this. "There's no problem here. I was tired, I went to bed, I slept, and now I'm not tired anymore. I don't see anything wrong with that."

"The fact that you were tired in the first place!" NiGHTS cried, at last coming to a stop and looking down into his face. "And that's another thing--Tiana said you went to bed at eight o' clock last night! That's really early, even for you!" His panicked face was beginning to settle...into a much more somber, grave expression. "I'm just worried...I think something might be really, really wrong with you, Reala."

Reala couldn't help but feel just a tad bit apprehensive at those words. NiGHTS only used his normal name instead of "Ree" when he was deathly serious about something. "Well, I feel perfectly fine," he finally insisted. "So there's nothing to worry about."

NiGHTS didn't look reassured at all.

Reala mentally resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to hide his sleepiness from NiGHTS from now on. It would only make him more worried and panicked every time he said he was tired or that he needed to rest. Hopefully, that wouldn't involve forcing himself to stay up all night.

"Now," he announced with sharp finality as he rose from the cot at last. "You and I need to have a little talk."

NiGHTS's worried face quickly turned into a humorous pout. "Serious time again?! But you just got up!"

"This can't wait." Reala hovered close to him, his voice suddenly dark, and NiGHTS had no choice but to drop the act and pay attention. "I told you not to corrupt my Explorer."

NiGHTS broke into unsteady chuckles. "Kahee...heehee...is that what you're on about? I'm not corrupting her just by talking to her! You shouldn't worry about--"

"No," Reala sharply interrupted him. "She doesn't trust me. I can tell."

"You're just so insecure," NiGHTS tried to wave him off. "She trusts you. Actually, I told her a bunch of _good _things about you that last time we--"

"She flew at me yesterday."

Instantly, NiGHTS's face fell...and even began to turn pale.

"After we finished the second reality. I'm sure she told you about that. She wouldn't let me hold her ideya. She said she was afraid, because I had been a Nightmaren..." Reala's eyes were narrowed, flashing dangerously into his own. It was a very familiar, terrible expression.

"W-Well...she asked!" NiGHTS finally protested. "What was I supposed to do--lie to her?!"

The look on Reala's face clearly said "Yes. You were."

"Well, the problem's only with the Nightmaren thing," NiGHTS spoke up, reassuringly. "I can just let her know more strongly that you were being controlled, and that I'm positive you're not a Nightmaren anymore. She made her third ideya fine, didn't she?"

Just as Reala's statement hadn't comforted NiGHTS, NiGHTS's statement didn't reassure Reala at all. "Alright," he reluctantly relented. "But you be more careful not to tell her those things."

"Okay." NiGHTS shivered a little. He hadn't remembered _that_ yet, had he? He couldn't have... He didn't seem that upset. And as far as he knew, the first part hadn't even gone through yet. He hadn't been called upon.

Reala turned away from him to gaze out the window at the sunlit street below and try to calm his nerves. He wasn't even sure himself why the fact that Tiana had attacked him was so upsetting to him. Having the knowledge that she didn't trust him... Why hadn't he felt this uncomfortable about it before? She'd certainly had issues with him earlier on. _Maybe this is the beginning of the "special connection"_, he mused. _That I felt almost betrayed... She's becoming more connected to me, and I haven't even noticed it. Well, I _have _had this _distraction_ around for a while..._

Meanwhile, "that distraction" was staring into the back of his head...his eyes slowly widening...becoming almost perfectly round. His mouth dropped open, in a tiny pink oval.

Reala finally noticed and glared back at him. "What are you staring at?"

"Guh...uh..." NiGHTS couldn't even speak clearly. "Uh...let me see your head for a minute."

"What?!" Reala whirled all the way around again, a look of pure surprise and confusion crossing his face. "My _head_? Why do you want to see my _head_?"

"I...I need to see...a little closer," NiGHTS floated forward and slowly began to reach out towards his sensors, some kind of awe-inspired trance coming over him.

"No!" Reala snapped, swiping his hands away with his sharp fingers. "Don't touch me! I don't know what kind of stupid, crazy idea you've got into your head now!"

"I'm just going to look at your sensors," NiGHS told him, the glazed look fading out of his eyes now. "I promise. I'm not going to hurt you or anything."

"Yeah, but you sure might embarrass me," Reala muttered, under his breath.

NiGHTS smiled, noticing his apprehensiveness. "It's okay. I'm not going to do _anything_. You have my word. If I'm lying, you can...um...force me to do whatever you want for the rest of the day."

"Deal."

NiGHTS smiled to himself again as he flew around behind him. It was always so easy to tell what Reala was thinking... He looked down into his two curling horn-like extensions and frowned. Gently, he picked one up in his hand to get a closer look at it. He examined it closely, and gently ran his other hand over its soft surface.

Reala shuddered a little. It felt strange to have NiGHTS touching his sensor--apparently, it was not only sensitive to ideya, smells, and sound waves, but touching as well. Though it hadn't felt so awkward when he'd squeezed them himself. It felt strangely crackling--almost as if NiGHTS was tickling him all over.

"Oh my gosh..." NiGHTS whispered as he turned to exmaine the other one as well. "I can't believe it. I never even noticed..."

"Okay, that's enough!" Reala finally snapped, wrenching his head out of his grasp. "Tell me what's going on!"

"I...um...you..." NiGHTS was caught off guard, still holding his hands up in awe...and that awful expression of concern began to creep back onto his face. "You're...you're fading."

"_Fading_?" Reala asked, squishing his sensors again as if to rid them of his presence. "What do you mean by _that_?"

"Fading," NiGHTS repeated. "Your colors...they're getting lighter. You look...pale."

"That's absurd!" Reala immediately scoffed. "How can my _sensors _be getting pale? My face, sure, but... It doesn't make any sense!" He took off, flying through Tiana's bedroom and down the hall. "And I'll prove it to you!"

"Well, it's not just your sensors..." NiGHTS weakly called, flying after him. "And...not the whole thing..."

Reala frustratingly zoomed through the kitchen, bashing open the door to the bathroom. He _wasn't _pale. There was no way. He couldn't be. That awful look on NiGHTS's face had made him determined to disprove him. That would mean he was weak...that would mean something _was _happening to him...that would mean NiGHTS was right!

Reala flew into the tiny room, angrily slamming his hands against the porcelain sink...and staring up into the mirror just above it. The same mirror that had told him about the mysterious diamond markings on his chest. A terrible, tense silence fell over the small room, following the crash of the sink.

NiGHTS quietly floated in behind him, clutching one gloved hand to his mouth.

Reala stared back into his own bulging blue eyes. It felt like his last dream all over again. This face was his own...yet it felt _different_...separate from him somehow. It was an awful, chilling, shaken feeling, even for a moment...not to recognize your own face.

His whole face was suddenly a much lighter shade of blue--almost white. His lips were a light shade of gray...as if their black color was slowly fading out. And the black stripes on his sensors were no longer black...but a shade of dark maroon-red.

_What's...happening to me? _It was the same...this was the same cold, disjoined feeling as when he had looked into the fountain of Dream Gate to see some other creature reflected back at him...the creature he used to be.

Reala let his head drop down, away from the sight. It angled downwards within his collar. The smooth, white basin of the sink opened before him, streaks of shine bending around its inner corners.

At last, NiGHTS drifted a tiny bit closer, behind him...and gently curled his white-sleeved arms up around his narrow body, pressing his gloved hands to his chest, just below his crystal. "...Are you okay?"

"I'm..." Reala automatically wrenched his head up, pulling his hands away from the sink to yank NiGHTS's away...and stopped. He let his air out again, slowly, and NiGHTS felt his body collapsing inwards and unclenching. "I...don't know."

NiGHTS moved closer...and softly pressed himself against his brother's back.

"But I feel fine," Reala finally spoke again, his voice hard and insistent. "So if anything's wrong, it's not that bad. It'll probably go away on its own...especially if that girl continues making progress at this rate..."

"Mmmmm..." NiGHTS wasn't listening. His face was buried in Reala's thin red jacket and puffy, frilled collar, hiding his pained expression. Reala felt the sound of his little whimper vibrate between his shoulders.

He gritted his teeth. No. Out of everything that came from his uncertain condition, this was what he hated the most. No! Stop doing that! "Let go of me!" his stern voice burst out, wrenching NiGHTS's arms away from his body and shoving his backwards. "I can't stand you pitying me like that!"

NiGHTS's surprised face melted back into a secret little smile. "I know," his lips moved carefully over his words. "You hate it when I worry about you. You don't like being the cause of my anxiety."

Reala's heart--or crystal--thumped somewhere inside his chest. _How? Why did he...?!_ Was that true? How could this be possible? That NiGHTS knew him...even better than he knew himself.

"Let's...just get out of here," he finally decided, whipping around and flying away towards the kitchen. "You've made your point now. It's time to move on."

NiGHTS trailed after him like a puppy, the same funny little smile still plastered on his face. "So," he spoke up, his voice all bright and cheery again. "I heard you morphed into a dragon yesterday."

"Oh, just shut up."

(-)

Tiana was incredibly relieved to find NiGHTS waiting at her apartment when she got home from school...though it did annoy her when he swooped down from the ceiling and crushed her into a "welcome home" hug. "Where did you go?" she asked him, while Reala was getting something out of the refrigerator. "And why did you leave?!"

"Oh, I had to go back and check on Nightopia for a little bit," NiGHTS told her. "I _am _the guardian of the Dreaming World, after all. I can't completely abandon it. How was everything here while I was gone?"

Tiana's eyes narrowed. "I'm not supposed to be talking to you."

"Ohhhh..." NiGHTS glanced back towards the entrance to the kitchen, but it looked like Reala was completely engrossed in his search of the fridge. He grumbled to himself as he shoved nearly his entire body between the shelves.

NiGHTS lowered himself to Tiana's level and moved in closer. "Well...Ree's just being a little paranoid, that's all. Don't worry about it. He thinks I'm trying to take you away from him. But you should know better." He pulled away again and raised his voice. "I mean, it doesn't matter if he _was _a Nightmaren once. He's not going to hurt you. And that's not who he really is, anyway. He was completely brainwashed."

Tiana just glared back at him. "He told you to say that to me, didn't he?"

NiGHTS frowned. "You're too sharp for your own good."

"I've got the hamburg!" Reala suddenly cried, zooming into the doorway and holding up a hunk of frozen meat in triumph.

"Yay!!" NiGHTS broke into a big grin and flew to his side. "...Only I don't eat meat. But still, _yay_!"

Reala rolled his eyes. "Then why are you so excited?"

Tiana scowled, anxiously. Somehow, she could feel that uncomfortable sensation of being in the middle of something again. She just closed her eyes and tried to forget about it. She couldn't allow it to influence her. She wasn't going to take sides. She couldn't afford to take either side and risk being wrong. She was bound to Reala, now. But that didn't mean she had to obey everything he told her.

(-)

Everything seemed to be falling back into the same, familiar old rhythmn. Tiana went to school, did her work, ignored her former friends, came home on the bus, stopped NiGHTS and Reala from destroying the place for the next four hours, played video games, had dinner with her mother, and went to bed. Whatever small disagreement they'd had was apparently beginning to fade away. They were back to their daily nagging at each other. And, mysteriously, no matter what kinds of loud arguments or fist-fights they broke into during the day, they were always sleeping in the same cot, right next to each other, at the end of it all.

_Well_, Tiana rationalized, _there _is_ only one cot. Where else would NiGHTS sleep? But...he doesn't _have _to sleep. Or so he says. And...they're not fighting about it. _

In fact, most of the time, NiGHTS even had his arms wrapped around Reala, as if he was some kind of giant teddy bear. And it was even more surprising that he didn't mind this at all. Tiana was dying to ask them about it, but...she didn't really think that she should. It was something that they didn't talk about--some sort of silent arrangement. And she definitely didn't want to interrupt that.

_They're brothers..._ she reminded herself. _But...brothers don't normally do _that_..._ It was sweet, but incredibly confusing, and so she just put that out of her mind as well.

But things were beginning to change... Reala was...acting even stranger than normal.

Tiana was simply lying out on her bed again, flipping through a comic book, when the first odd instance occured. It was evening, and NiGHTS had just returned from his "ceremony". He was always unusually calm and relaxed after one of these appointments, and so today, he was just lying back in Tiana's swiveling desk chair, his eyes closed, peacefully. And then, Reala came in.

Tiana wasn't really sure what he'd been doing out in the living room all this time, but he was probably just coming to take a nap or nag her about something. Indeed, he did float up to the side of the cot...but turned when he noticed his brother flopped over the desk chair, breathing softly. He moved closer.

Tiana braced herself for the yelling that she was sure would follow. But it didn't come just then. Reala floated up, over the chair, staring down into NiGHTS's almost-sleeping face...and brought his own face a little closer to it. A little closer... Reala was hovering above him in a kneeling position, pressing his hands to his knees and staring blankly at him, six inches away, as if he was intensely studying his face.

NiGHTS's long body began to move a little--one leg twitched, and he groped the side of the chair with one gloved hand. "Mmmm..." his light voice mumbled. "Uhhhh..." Then, he opened his eyes.

"EEEEEEYAAAAAAAUGH!!" NiGHTS shot back against the chair, sending it flying backwards into the headboard of Tiana's bed.

Reala floated back from him again, the edges of his mouth turning up in a smirk.

Tiana was suddenly reminded of the first time he had shown up at her house and had been staring down at her over her bed. _I guess he just likes to do that to people..._

"What was that for?!" NiGHTS complained as he shot out of the chair, fully awake now.

"You were just asking for it, lying out in the open like that," Reala explained. "Next time, don't let your guard down."

"But I was just..."

Tiana tuned out the rest of their resulting argument. It didn't matter as much as the strange reversal she'd just witnessed. Though Reala had been known to pull stunts on NiGHTS before, he was never the instigator. Anything he did was to get back at something NiGHTS had originally done to him. In the rare cases when NiGHTS left him alone, he left _him_ alone as well. But this time, he had willingly come up to a peaceful NiGHTS...and provoked him. It was almost like saying "Hey, what are you doing just lying around?! Let's play!" Or at least, that was the way it was when NiGHTS provoked _him_. With Reala, it was more like, "I'm bored. Entertain me." But then, there was the second and even more shocking incident...

(-)

As soon as Tiana stepped out of the bathroom, she could hear the strange noise. The apartment was small enough that any significant amount of noise reverberated through the thin wall boards throughout the entire floor. Obviously, it was coming from her bedroom, where she'd left NiGHTS and Reala to entertain themselves for the few seconds while she wasn't there. She'd foolishly entrusted that they couldn't do much damage in that short amount of time. But this noise didn't sound like screaming...or arguing. And it _was_ a voice--she could be sure of that. Normally, she could identify NiGHTS's and Reala's separate voices...but this didn't sound like either of them. It was like some kind of coughing...or shuddering.

Tiana approached her own bedroom quietly and curiously. Whatever it was, she didn't want to interrupt it before she found out. Her own cream-colored door gradually grew closer, and the noise was getting a little clearer.

"Kihmmhmmhmmhmm! Mmmhmm...hihhihhihhihhihhihhihh... _Ihhihhihhihhihhihhihh_!"

It sounded like...laughter. But that wasn't NiGHTS's familiar "teeheehee" giggling. And...that was too high-pitched...too _light_ to be...

Thankfully, she'd left the door ajar. In the long section left open, she could see the two of them on her bed. And her mouth dropped.

There was NiGHTS, kneeling close over the mattress. And while he did have a huge smile on his flushed face, that was all. He was giggling a little bit to himself, but it was too soft to hear clearly. And there was Reala. Half-hidden in the covers...his body shaking. His head turned away towards the wall. And that mysterious, funny, wonderful noise was coming out of _him_.

Reala. Laughing. _Reala_ was _laughing_. It wasn't like the cruel chuckling he'd first shown her, or the crazed, triumphant laughter he forced out to taunt NiGHTS. It sounded completely out-of-place, and Tiana had to squint at the amazing scene to make sure it really was him. It had that light tone to it--so unlike his own heavy, masculine voice. So fluttery and carefree.

"Ihhihhihhihhihh...Ehihhihhihhihhihh!!"

NiGHTS was bending close and tickling him, trying to keep it going for as long as possible. "Keheeheeheehee!"

"_Ihh_-hihhihhihhihh..." Reala wrenched his body back and forth, desperately attempting to subdue it, but it wasn't working. It was like something inside of him had just burst open, allowing the laughter to pour out...and it was impossible to staunch the flow now. His face was still too far away to see clearly, even when he pulled away, but as he rolled back and forth, Tiana was sure she saw a soft blue light flickering over NiGHTS's face...emanating from the crystal at the center of Reala's chest.

She just couldn't contain it anymore. Her own chest tightened as she tried to stifle it, but it was no use. Her own laughter bubbled up out of her, joining their euphoric chorus. It was just such a rare a wonderful sight that she could feel their joy and happiness. Maybe, this was the beginning of her connection forming.

And then, abruptly, it all came to a halt. A little shock went through Tiana's heart when she realized that she was the only one laughing now, and instantly, in died within her.

NiGHTS turned and glanced over at her with wide, deep blue eyes.

Reala shot up beside him, his face angry and scowling, but still bright pink. The glow of his crystal softly faded away again.

Tiana's own brown eyes widened. They knew that she had seen them. _Reala _knew that she had seen him. Like _that_. Slowly, Tiana took a tense step backward...and all in one flash, seized the door handle, slamming it shut on them.

She panted. She'd have to wait out in the parlor until NiGHTS had him properly under control. _Oh God_, she thought, as she carefully stepped back down the hallway. _Why did I have to do that and make them notice me? _

Meanwhile, on the other side of the bedroom door, Reala turned his glare at NiGHTS.

NiGHTS just grinned, sheepishly.

"...You know you're going to have to die now, right?"

"...Yeah..."

(-)

"You know..." Tiana thought out loud one night while Reala was obsessively washing the dishes again. "You and NiGHTS...really are a lot alike..."

The pale blue hand froze against the dish it had been scrubbing.

"I mean, you're..."

"I suggest you stop right where you are." Reala's hard voice warned. "If you value your life."

"Oh, come on," Tiana courageously insisted. "It can't be that bad to be a _little _bit like him."

"Oh, yes it is." Reala was clearly upset. He flung the plate back into the sink with a wet _plunk_. "Forget this--I'll do the rest of it tomorrow. I'm going to bed."

"Now?" Tiana glanced at the microwave's digital clock. "It's...eight o' clock again."

"And I'm tired," Reala insisted. "Don't bother me."

_Here it goes again..._ Tiana thought. _He's tired. And there's something wrong with that... _Then, as he turned around and began to fly back off towards her room, she suddenly noticed it for the first time. "Wow..." she spoke up. "You look really pale."

"I know," he replied, firmly turning his face away from her. "Shut up."

And that was all they ever said about it.

(-)

"Rrrrgh..." Reala turned off the light and plunked himself down on the cot, crossing his legs in irritation. _Why does that always come up?! Now my own Explorer is all worried about me too! I'm not sick! I don't _get_ sick! We're immortal--how can we get sick?! _

He sighed and tried to release some of his anger. It wouldn't help to be so uptight when he was trying to get to sleep. Though Reala _was_ feeling a little bit tired now, he'd purposely decided to go to bed at this time rather than wait another hour or two until he really was tired. And that was because he was trying to have another dream. He'd already decided not to tell NiGHTS anything about the last dream. Ever since that world had shown him his own face, it was now his personal mission to discover just what the dream meant. At first, he'd simply thought of it as a reflection of his two separate selves--the person he was under Wizeman, and this strange, former self that he was now reverting to. But that face hadn't been wearing a persona mask.

_Nightopia is just too weird_, he decided. _But..._was_ that Nightopia? It had to be, if I went there in a dream. That's the only explanation. NiGHTS would know about it. But I'm _not _going to ask him. He'll probably say something like, "Oh, that means that you are your own worst enemy! You need to lighten up, Ree!" _

Reala crossed his arms as well and glowered down at the tiny fibers of the aqua rug. _NiGHTS. It's his fault that I've waited so long to investigate. He's been distracting me again. I can't allow it anymore. I've just got to ignore him. He's annoying, and stupid, and weird, and fun to mess around with...but no more. It's time to go back... Back..._

"Hey, Ree, I'm baaaaaaaack!"

"Agck!" Reala leapt back from the window as NiGHTS came flying in through it.

"I was just out on the roof!" NiGHTS explained, directing one of his big, cheery grins at him. "It was pretty cool! Oh, are you going to bed?!"

"Yeah..." Reala hesitantly replied, staring back at him in confusion. Why on earth did he look so excited about it?

"Okay, then!" NiGHTS plopped himself down on the mattress and curled up against it, making himself comfortable.

"Um...I said that _I'm _going to bed," Reala sternly told him. "Not _you_."

"Well, if you're going to bed, I'm going to bed too!" NiGHTS chirped. "I can sleep whenever I want--I don't get tired like you."

Reala automatically moved to smack him off...but hesitated. He probably hadn't really meant it as an insult. And NiGHTS had been sleeping here next to him ever since he had returned. It was kind of...comforting to have him there. And he usually left him alone...aside from the hugging. But that was kind of comforting too.

Reala slowly let out his air. "Okay. Fine. Whatever." He lied back into the cot, next to him and closed his eyes. "I just don't care right now."

There was a moment of confused silence. NiGHTS simply stared into his back for a while, the wheels visibly turning behind his glowing eyes.

Reala's body was tensed, waiting for the feeling of NiGHTS's arms snaking up around his waist again. It wasn't coming.

NiGHTS slipped off his stretchy white gloves, casually tossing them onto the floor...and slowly began to reach up.

"Iya!" Reala called out as a crackling tickle shuddered through his entire body. "W-What are you doing?!"

"Shhhhhh..." NiGHTS hissed, his hands pressed over both of his sensors. Gently, he began to move his hands back and forth, running them over the striped, red skin.

"W-What are you...?" The tickling was gradually melting away into a simple, warm sensation. It actually felt kind of nice now.

"I'm giving you a sensor rub," NiGHTS whispered...and began to rub a little deeper, pressing his fingertips into the soft and pliable material.

"L-Leave...leave my sensors...alone..."

NiGHTS couldn't help grinning at the sound of his voice. He'd remembered, the way he'd been so flustered when he'd touched his sensors. Reala used to really like it...when he did this for him.

Reala grumbled in protest and stuffed his face against the pillow when he felt the light prickle on his cheeks that told him he probably looked stupid right now. That warm, comfortable feeling was becoming even more comfortable. It felt as if he was wrapped up in a soft, fluffy blanket...but it was also a feeling of comfort...as if NiGHTS was caressing not only his sensors, but his entire body. The feelings were reverberating through him, and he couldn't fight back agianst them. Suddenly, he didn't want to. _That...feels so good..._

NiGHTS was enjoying this almost as much, just feeling his reactions. He had to stop himself from giggling. He rubbed his hands over and around his sensors, trying to get every inch. He went down to the tiny, curled tips, then up to the thick bases where they molded off from his head. And then, he began to press in even deeper, gently kneading the squishy, sensitive flesh. It was no longer a sensor rub, but a sensor massage.

Reala almost gasped as another tingly feeling went through his body...but instead of irritating and uncomfortable, this one was a light and loving tickle which lit a spark of excitement and happiness within him. He had to squish his face further into the pillow to prevent that disgusting noise from bursting out of him again.

NiGHTS fell back into a gentle caress again when he noticed the effect the massage had. He needed him to calm down and relax now.

Reala melted back into that wonderful warmth again. He'd never felt so peaceful before in his life. So relaxed...so content...so loved. It wasn't long before he began to gently drift off to sleep.

NiGHTS rubbed and rubbed until, at last, he could hear Reala's soft, rhythmic breathing, and he knew that he was sound asleep now. A mysterious little smile turned up at the corners of his lips as he gingerly pulled his hands back. It was time.

He silently drifted off the end of the cot and took a brief pause to gaze around the room...before shooting out through the window, into the starry night sky.

(-)

Blackness...coldness...spikes...platform...checkered floor...checkered railings...checkered chair...

Reala clenched his hands and shook the heavy fuzziness from his head as the world again took shape around him. It rapidly opened up before him now that he knew what it was. He felt much more empowered and in control of his own dream now. This place was becoming clearer, sharper...vividly real. The twisted spikes in the distance were also colored with the same red-and-black checkers. Large checkered pots were suspended in the air around this extremely tall chair, blue flames crackling out from within them. Blue...the color of his body.

_I never really noticed those things before_. Reala's thoughts were coming to him in crystal clarity, just as if he was awake. _Everything is colored like me. But...those aren't my colors anymore. _He raised one arm to get a look at his sleeve cuffs. Just like the stripes on his sensors, the black squares on his cuffs had faded into a dark maroon-red color. His clothing _was _a part of his body, after all, though a part he could still function without. The only piece that remained unchanged was the long, black strip wound around his chest...because that didn't belong to him.

He squeezed his pale blue fingers into a fist underneath the sleeve. He had the power now--this was his own dream, his own mind. And he was going to figure it out, once and for all.

There was a twinge on the ends of his sensors. It was time now. He ground his teeth together, tensing every muscle of his body with determination. He would find out what this recurring dream really meant, stop it from repeating itself...and win out against this false version of his own image. He had to do this now, before he woke up again.

_Now! _Reala whipped around, twirling off the end of the chair, to meet his imposter face-to-face. And there he was.

His own light blue eyes rolled upwards, following him from their scarred sockets. Black lips scowled back at him. Two long, red-and-black horns framed the round face...and Reala was reminded of how different his own red-and-maroon ones looked now. But now, from this distance, he was finally able to get a look at his doppelganger's body.

He was immediately startled by how..._naked _he looked. Though he was sitting down in the chair, and it was hard to get a good view of his body, there was an awful lot of blue-colored skin showing. At his collar was a simple, deep blue scarf, and he wore a red jacket and boots similar to his own, except there was an extra black stripe at the top of the boots...and the jacket didn't have any sleeves.

Instantly, Reala recognized the large and muscular build he'd possessed while working for Wizeman. Apparently, that was the result of being pumped full of Nightmare energy. The bulging muscles of his arms stood out even more, now that there were no sleeves stretching over them. Some sort of puffy arm guards were fastened around the lower half of his forearms, in place of cuffs, with strange, round designs on the top.

And then, his hands were entirely covered by black gloves...and long, sharp, menacing claws in an unusual shade of neon yellow, fitted over his fingers somehow.

But none of this disturbed and shocked Reala as much as..._this_. Everything from his front collar to his knees was completely bare...clearly exposing the three unmistakable colored diamonds on the skin of his chest. And there was no blue crystal attached to the first diamond. The blue diamond was entirely exposed...an empty receptor site, waiting for its other half. Against his better judgement, Reala felt a tiny shiver go through his own chest at the sight. This strange replica of him was soulless. An empty outer shell. A body with no life. And yet it was _moving around_..._staring _at him. Though strangely enough, those eyes didn't seem so completely lifeless. There _was_ something behind them...something twisted and uncomfortable.

"...Who are you?"

Reala felt another involuntary shiver within him at the sound of his voice. It wasn't his own--at least he could be sure of that. It was higher pitched, with a strange, almost alien, accent which eerily reverberated throughout this entire area. It felt almost as if the entire room was speaking--not just him.

Reala set his face into a hard, determined glare. He was _not _intimidated by this shadowy image of himself. He was going to get the answers out of it, no matter what it took. After all, this was only a dream. A dream which needed explanation. Now.

"I am you," Reala told him. "Or you are me. We are 'other selves'. Both of us are Reala. Isn't that right?"

"No." The other Reala's echoing voice slid out of his black lips. "We are not the same."

And he had to agree with that.

"So..." he calmly probed for answers. "Who _are _you?"

"I..." The other Reala's mysterious voice took on a hard and challenging tone. He leaned forward in his chair, neon claws gripping the armrests. "I am the most powerful and highest-ranking Nightmaren created by Maser Wizeman. And _you _are trespassing in my throne room."

_The most powerful and highest-ranking Nightmaren created by Master Wizeman. _Reala's chest clutched, stopping his breath. _That's...what I always used to believe. That was who I was. But...there's no armor...or mask... And a _throne room_...?! Is that what this place is? That big chair is a throne? How...?_

"You...are nothing but a cheap imposter, passing through Stick Canyon. You do not belong here."

_Stick Canyon..._ At the sound of those words, images sprang into being in Reala's mind--giant magnets, towering metal structures, and twisting tracks. Automatically, he knew what he was talking about, though he'd never heard of it before. It was a Nightopia...but...not one of Will's or Helen's.

Even through his whirling thoughts, Reala began to feel a terrible, dense force pressing against his senors. _Anoher _one?! Apparently, his other self could sense it as well. Some powerful, living presence approaching.

His blue face twisted into an awful, dark scowl. "I'll have to deal with you later."

Reala whirled around in mid-air, floating back away from the throne...and he couldn't control the sharp gasp which shot out of him at the sight.

There was a long, purple creature gradually flying closer and closer towards them. NiGHTS. But his outfit looked strangely...plain. There were no ruffles at his collar, no sequins glittering on his sleeves...and there was something different about him. There was just some kind of _feeling_...a sense, or aura around him. He was currently Dualized with a Dreamer.

But all of a sudden, he froze in the middle of his flight, just over the spiked border of the throne room. There was obviously some confusion and disunity in their merge. NiGHTS seemed stricken in place, unable to move any closer. His deep blue eyes stretched all the way open. "Reala...?"

The other Reala met his gaze with a dangerous, icy glare.

Meanwhile, the real Reala was just as paralyzed as NiGHTS. This was so...familiar. Everything was so...familiar. It had happened before. This was...something that had already happened.

At last, the other Reala pushed against his throne's armrests, his muscled arms visibly flexing...and stretched up to full height. Ready to face his destiny. Ready to fulfill his purpose. Ready to destroy his traitorous brother, once and for all.

_"How pleased I am to see that you remember me..." "You _will_ be mine this time!" "This way...it's useless. You were unable to get the job done last time. So this is the best you can do." Unable to get the job done last time. Unable...last time... Last time... LAST TIME..._

The scene burst out of existence, replaced by a whirlwind of thoughts, emotions, images... Reala squeezed his eyes closed, just trying to hold on to his sanity. Everything hit him at the exact same moment. The images...the ideas...the memories.

_"I'm really glad he had your crystal in the tower too..." _

The Dream Fountain. The tall tower with the capsule tip. NiGHTS's teary face leaning over him. The brilliant sunset from the roof of a house in the city. Not this city. The other city. Twin Seeds. He could see everything...everything that had happened, from before he'd been captured. And after...after he'd been captured.

_"Unable to get the job done last time"..._ He'd always wondered what that meant. He'd always wondered why...

_That was... _Reala was amazed to find his own thoughts again, amidst the enormous jumble and confusion overwhelming him. _That was...the time before. The other time...when I was captured. The first time. That _was _me. The other me. The me from the past. The person I was...the first time I was a Nightmaren! _

(-)

Reala pulled his eyes open again...to find himself lying flat on his back against the lumpy cushion of his cot. It was over now. But even so, his mind didn't return to Tiana's bedroom for another five minutes.

His body lied perfectly still as he absorbed the shock of the discovery and carefully assimilated all of these new memories into his mind. It felt extremely uncomfortable all of a sudden, to know all of this. To clearly remember the time he'd spent, casually drifting across Twin Seeds, spending time with NiGHTS, in the short interval between brainwashings. Eleven years, exactly. Not very long at all, in their infinite lifespans. He had been looking for an Explorer, he remembered, but there weren't nearly as many Voidables as there were now. He'd never found one.

He couldn't remember anything during his pledge of loyalty to Wizeman, or from before it...but he knew that he had been defeated. NiGHTS had defeated Wizeman, with two other Dreamers, and somehow, come back with his crystal. And then, everything had been fine again, until Wizeman rose back to power.

_NiGHTS must know all of this_, Reala realized. _Why didn't he tell me? _

He turned over in the cot...to find an empty space beside him. NiGHTS was gone again. Sunlight streamed in through the window. Apparently, he'd slept through his ceremony again. Glancing over, he saw that Tiana's bed was also empty. He was completely alone. Not even a confused Awaker remained to stare at him. And for the first time, he actually felt a bit uncomfortable about being alone with himself.

Everyhing felt different now. He had been taken, changed, and used by that six-handed monster not once but _twice_. And it could happen again. And desperately, determinedly...Reala didn't want it to.

(-)

_But how did he capture me the first time? I can't remember. I wasn't at the Dream Gate. There was no Dream Gate. No, of course there was. What am I talking about? There was a Dream Gate. I just never saw it until NiGHTS forced me to go there. But I don't really understand. The second time, Wizeman had to fit me with a brainwashing mask and place a piece of his soul against my chest to keep me in willing submission to him. There was nothing on my chest then. Well, maybe it wasn't necessary to have the piece of his soul...but something had to have erased my memories. I didn't remember. I didn't remember about being the Waking World's guardian, until NiGHTS told me. It had to have been something I was wearing. But...I wasn't wearing much..._

"Reeee-eee..."

_Maybe he put it inside me? Ohhh, that's disgusting! He better not have done anything like that! I'll knock his multicolored eyes out! _

"Reeee-eee... Hey, Realaaaaaa... Realaaaa... Reeeeee-ah-laaaaaaah... Leeee-lah-lah..."

"Ah! What?" Reala popped out of his thinking trance when NiGHTS's white-gloved hand twitched up and down half an inch in front of his face. Where was he again? He looked down to see a thin, moon-shaped controller resting against his limp hands. "...Huh?"

"It's your turn!" NiGHTS cried, jabbing at the television screen across from the bed. "You were spacing out and just staring at the screen like a zombie!"

Reala blinked at the wavery image of the anthropomorphic lion standing on a green square and scowling at him as a wheel spun endlessly above his head. "Oh. Sorry." He pressed the stop button, and the wheel landed on two. The lion disgustedly moved ahead two spaces and stopped. NiGHTS turned to stare at him with wide eyes.

_Now where was I? Oh, yeah, buried under my skin somewhere..._

"Is something wrong?" NiGHTS asked, another worried look on his face.

_Argh, just shut up, will you?!_

"I mean...you didn't seem mad about your low number. I'm going to get the gold bar."

"Whatever." Reala let the controller slip out of his hands, even as the computer-controlled ostrich began to stride ahead six spaces. He stepped up to the bookcase, reached one finger forward, and hit the "power" button on the front of the PolyPack. NiGHTS nearly screamed as the game blinked out of existence, everything that he'd done so far completely lost. "It's just a stupid game, anyway." Then, he simply floated away to the parlor, leaving his befuddled brother with his mouth hanging open.

_Dang it_, Reala fumed, as the sparkles trailed out behind him. _Why is it that whenever he disappears like that, he always comes back before the end of the day to torment me? _

Indeed, NiGHTS had reappeared around noon, while Tiana was still at school. He'd said he had needed to check on the Dream Gate again--he couldn't leave Owl to do everything by himself. But there was a peculiar lilt in his voice which gave him some doubts about that. He'd probably just been out exploring the city and wreaking havoc on his realm, or visiting those dim-witted children again. He just didn't want him to know.

_And the one time I actually _wanted _him to be there... _Reala quickly shook himself. _Nevermind about NiGHTS. Buried under my skin... It can't be buried buried under my skin. That would leave a mark. It has to be somewhere where you can't see it..._

"...Ree?" The sound of NiGHTS's unusually soft voice again shattered his concentration. That was it. That was the last straw.

"Go away!" Reala cried, violently whirling around to challenge him. "I stopped the game so I could get _away_ from you, not to have you follow me around like an annoying little gnat!"

NiGHTS's whole body drooped. "I...I was just concerned. It looks like something's bothering you."

"I'd be perfectly fine, if I didn't have _you _bugging me all the time! God, I can't even hear myself _think_!"

"But...if you tell me, I might be able to help."

"Why should I tell you?! I don't have to tell you everything! Stop prying into my own business all the time! It wasn't enough to try to take my Explorer away from me--you have to butt in on every single little thing in my life?!"

This time, NiGHTS visibly recoiled. He realized now that Reala wasn't going to back down. Sometimes he was just too stubborn for his own good.

Reala succinctly turned his back on him. Arguing wasn't going to do it. The only way to get NiGHTS to go away was to completely ignore him.

NiGHTS sighed. This wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind. It really was taking a toll on him. "I'm sorry..." his diminished voice whispered.

"I don't need your sympathy." And just as Reala hoped, that was the end of it.

NiGHTS's head tucked in towards the bright reddish crystal on his chest...a motion of sadness and disappointment. But then, a tiny, secretive smile began to appear in the shadow of his lowered face. _It's time_. He turned, zooming back down the hallway to Tiana's room with excited eagerness, a bright sparkle trail floating out behind him.

_Heh, _Reala thought, when he felt his brother's presence fade out of the room. _I bet he ran off to go cry somewhere. Now. Back to work..._

(-)

Tiana returned from school at two-thirty to a pleasantly quiet apartment. Reala was floating above the sofa in a sitting position, his arms and legs crossed again...and he didn't even notice when she carefully crept past him, through the living room and down the hall. Apparently, he was too deep in thought about something. Ah, the familiar old thinking trances! She'd begun to miss those.

She carefully slipped into her room, closing the door to assure her privacy. Tiana quickly scanned her room for any shiny, purple objects that might qualify as parts of NiGHTS's body. Nothing. She smiled. Sure, she was a bit disappointed that NiGHTS hadn't returned yet, but she was sure he eventually would. This was the first time she'd been completely alone in over two weeks.

She giggled, excitedly, and skipped up to her TV on the bookcase. This was perfect timing! She'd just gotten into the Thorn Palace yesterday, and now, at last, she was going to battle the evil queen Cathorn. This was going to be so epic!

Tiana was a bit confused to find the Jungle Board Party disc inside the PolyPack when she lifted its cover--she hadn't played that game in a while, since it was kind of boring with only one player. Oh well. She just removed it and popped the Battle Fantasy World disc in its place.

Tiana quickly pressed the power button, grabbed the controller, and happily plopped onto her bed. She could spend all afternoon playing it! She could turn off the lights and make it really dramatic! And no one would interrupt her!

Bright red letters popped up on the screen.

"What?" Tiana stared at them in confusion. _This _had never appeared before. "Improper shutdown detected," she read. "Please press X to restart..."

Slowly, her face began to lose its excited flush. She just stared at the taunting red letters in disbelief. All of her hopes sank straight down to the bottom of her heart. She felt like screaming. She felt like running around the room and throwing things. She felt like jumping up on the couch and strangling Reala, even though he had no neck. Then at last, she opened her mouth.

"Oh my God! _They broke it_!"

(-)

"Hmmm..." Reala leaned back against the smooth, hard surface of the bottom rim, his long sensors curling around his head and cushioning him. The warm water lapping at his collar was quite comfortable and refreshing. If only he didn't have this stupid dolphin tail... Nevermind about that. He needed to relax and concentrate now. That _was _the whole point of taking this bath. Well, besides cleaning himself and getting some private, alone time.

Tiana had been upset all afternoon about her PolyPack being broken, before she suddenly realized that all she had to do was restart it again and it would be fine. NiGHTS bad been trying to comfort her, and once she'd gotten it working again, they'd both broken into celebration, dancing around the house, eating ice cream, and playing together like it was her birthday or something.

Reala just couldn't wait to get out of their way. Hopefully, they were now sufficiently entertained and they wouldn't be bothering him anymore. Though it was a bit risky to be leaving Tiana alone with NiGHTS for this long, he figured it couldn't do too much damage for just one day. And right now, he desperately needed to figure this out.

Reala couldn't get the chilling image out of his head...of himself, warped and manipulated by the Nightmare Master. Those thick arms, that bare blue diamond, those piercing yellow claws...

_The claws! _

He brought one of his own hands up out of the water and flexed it a little, examining its contours. His pointy fingernails kind of resembled claws...but they weren't nearly as thick, long, and sharp.

_They're extensions. Covers that go over my fingers. Those weird glove things must hold them on. I know it's not close to my mind, but... I am connected to the crystal no matter what part of my body it's touching. Maybe the same goes for Wizeman's mind-controlling devices. Those claws must be just like the mask! _They _were what erased my memories from before! That's right...I...didn't have claws when I woke up..._

Reala bolted upright in the bathtub. It was the first time he'd remembered any kind of details from the moment he'd first regained his memories. He could remember, even just for an instant, being _inside_ of that strange body, with no pants... But still nothing before that.

He took a deep breath. _Now, I wonder if I'll be able to go back to that dream again. Maybe if I really concentrated on it. I want to go back. I have to find out for sure. If I can ho back there and take his--my claws off. If I can find the crystal of Wizeman's soul and remove it. I want to see what happens...if my memories from that time and before it will come back to me. _

He slowly curled his hand into a tight fist, his teeth also clenching together. _I can't go on not knowing..._ he firmly decided. _I won't just allow this to end without a fight. I have to go back there, as soon as possible. I won't let that _thing_ hold me back! _

"Hhahhhhhhh!!" A sudden, sharp, grating gasp snapped Reala out of his determined thoughts. Immediately, he jerked around towards the doorway...to see the one thing in the world he least wanted to see.

NiGHTS was standing, spread out in the doorcasing, his eyes big and sparkling. His face lit up in a huge, hopeful, delighted smile. "_Bathtime_!!" he squealed.

Reala's eyes bulged open, but he only managed to get out a feeble "No!" before NiGHTS tore of all his clothes in two seconds and dove into the bathtub, splattering hot water all over the brown-tiled walls. "Aaaaugh!" he finally screamed, smacking him over the side of the tub with his tail fin. "_Get out_!"

NiGHTS just broke into crazy high-pitched laughter as he flopped gracefully onto the rug. "Keeheeheehee! Oh, man, that was fun!"

Reala groaned and whirled away from the sight. "It's just never enough for you, is it? You have to barge in on my bath too?!"

"Why didn't you tell me it was bathtime?" NiGHTS simply replied, crawling back up to the side of the tub and peering over it, the same giant ecstatic smile in place. "We always take baths together!"

Reala scowled down at him. "Since when?"

"Since _always_!" NiGHTS hopped back into the other side of the tub, near the faucet. His legs also transformed into a peach-colored dolphin fin. "You remember?" he cocked his head a little, his short purple sensors flopping to the side.

And for the moment, Reala was too stunned and confused to respond.

"You _do_?!" NiGHTS cried, his entire face lighting up again. He nearly leaped up out of the water with excitement. "You really _do_?!"

"_No_..."

"Oh..." NiGHTS settled back down into the bathtub, a bit disappointed, though his smile still didn't fade out. "You just didn't say anything, and I thought..."

"You..." Reala finally spoke up, moving a little closer to get a better look. "You have the same markings on your chest..."

"Huh? Oh, you mean these?" NiGHTS sat up further in the tub, exposing his entire torso, and tapped the two colored diamond shapes on his peach-colored body with one finger. His red crystal covered the first one, and the last one, over his stomach, was blue. It looked just like the pattern on Reala's body, except with the top and bottom colors reversed. "Of course I do! What, you didn't think I had it too?"

"So...what does it mean?" Reala asked. "Since we both have the same diamond markings..."

"Well, it shows where the crystal attaches to your chest!" NiGHTS brightly replied, poking his own crystal with one bare finger. "It's like the connector spot on your body."

"I know _that_!" Reala impatiently snapped. "I meant--what about the other two diamonds? Are there two other crystals that we're supposed to have...?"

"Oh, no," NiGHTS simply told him. "They're just there for...decoration, I guess."

Reala sighed in frustration. He'd almost wanted there to be something more to it that that. There really was no purpose for him having these useless decorations.

"But..." NiGHTS softly continued, fingering the skin of his bottom diamond. "We do have them. I still have a blue diamond, even though my color is red, and you have a red diamond..."

NiGHTS's voice was so gentle now...so low and mysterious. Reala couldn't help but sit up and listen. The last time he'd sounded like this was when he'd told him about being captured.

"And this purple one here...is where they merge." His fingers slipped upwards, fondly resting over the center diamond. "There's a tiny piece of you in me and a tiny piece of me in you. Maybe this is...where we were joined together when we first came into existence."

Reala frowned with concentration. "We were joined together?"

"Well, I don't know that." NiGHTS's voice brightened again, and he turned his head up to smile at him. "It's just a theory of mine. There's no way I can remember _that _long ago."

Reala let out his breath and settled back down into the bathwater, closing his eyes to think about it some more. Of course, he couldn't remember that far ago either, and it was useless to even try. But they did have that strange "connection"...and perhaps that could explain it. If they had originally been joined... He wasn't really sure how he felt about that.

"And you want to know my other theory?" NiGHTS grinned, suspiciously, and began to move in closer.

"No," Reala replied. But he told him anyway.

"We were joined at the sensors!" NiGHTS leaped up and began to nuzzle the back of his head against his face. And two second later, he was taking another graceful flop over the edge of the bathtub.

"And stay out." Reala retracted his long tail fin and leaned back against the edge again.

NiGHTS waited until he had closed his eyes again, before carefully slipping back in. He worked up some soap on his hands and slowly, gently reached out to touch his shoulders.

"What ah--" Before he could make any kind of protest, NiGHTS quickly turned him around in the water and began to run his soapy hands up and down his back. "What are you doing now?" Reala finally growled in annoyance.

"I'm washing your back," NiGHTS calmly explained. "I'll get all the areas you can't reach. Well, you _could _reach them if you didn't mind stretching out, but I know the way you are about that." NiGHTS could feel his shoulders tensing up underneath his hands. Jeez, why was he always so sensitive about everything? "So, it's okay," he continued, purposely lightening his voice. "You can just relax... You don't mind me doing this, do you?"

"No," Reala decided, and the tension in his back faded away. "Of course I don't mind. If you want to be my slave from now on, go right ahead."

A tiny smile came over NiGHTS's face as he scrubbed. _He's getting back to normal now. Thank goodness. _"Yes, Master Ree."

Reala's body shuddered as he held back one of those terribe tugs on the inside. "That's a complete contradiction."

NiGHTS broke into giggles, the soapy water dripping off the round bottom stubs of his hands. And for a while after, neither of them said a word.

"...I can wash your sensors too!" NiGHTS cheerily offered once he was done.

"Don't touch my sensors!" Reala finally snapped as he turned back around again to rest against the rim. "I don't want you doing that weird sensor thing to me again."

"Aw, but it's fun!" NiGHTS whined, even as he carefully leaned himself back against the faucet. "C'mon, you like it. You know you do. You just won't admit it."

Reala just closed his eyes, a smug, secretive little smile poking onto his lips. He didn't need to say anything--NiGHTS could read it perfectly. "I'm never going to admit it," it said, "And you know I'm never going to."

"Agh," NiGHTS replied, crossing his arms and splashing his tail a little. "Stubborn."

And then, everything faded back to the same, silent, peaceful feeling between them. And privately, within each of their crystalline hearts, they could feel it. Their connection. They didn't have to agree or get along out loud. It didn't matter if they never admitted their true feelings to each other in words. This was all they needed...just to rest, silently...and exist. Just the pure feeling of being _here_, close to each other, was enough. But somehow, it never seemed to last for very long.

"..." NiGHTS opened his eyes again and looked around. "...I wanna make bubbles!"

"Errrrrgh..."

(-)

"Hi, I'm back!!"

Tiana nearly let the controller slip straight out of her hands at the sight. She just stared straight at her doorway, completely confused and disturbed. NiGHTS and Reala hovered just in front of the doorcasing...with towels wrapped awkwardly around their heads. _What the...?! I know Reala said he was taking a bath, but... NiGHTS did kind of disappear for a while. They were taking a bath at the same time?! In the same bathtub?! _Together_?!_

Tiana's mind was racing out of control. She was beginning to feel a little nervous about this whole strange relationship they had going on. "Um...hi," she finally answered NiGHTS's cheery call.

Reala shook himself, squeezing the last of the water out of his sensors and tossing his towel over Tiana's hamper. "And now, I am going to bed," he announced.

Tiana whirled around to look at her alarm clock. "My God, it's seven-thirty now! Are you really that tired?!"

Reala's eyes narrowed into a dark and hard glare. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, even as he casually floated over to the side of the cot. "Yes."

"Aww, already?" NiGHTS whined. "But I wanted to play that animal board game thing with you again."

Reala ignored him, ceremoniously stripping off his jacket and boots and firmly lying down on the cot as if he was preparing for battle. And he was.

"Oh, well," NiGHTS spoke again, purposely trying to break up the atmosphere. "Well then, sweet dreams!"

If he hadn't been lying down with a blanket wrapped over him, Reala just might have punched NiGHTS across the face for that unwelcome comment. As it was, he just silently snarled and turned towards the window, firmly closing his eyes.

And then, Tiana witnessed one of the most awful, disheartening things she had seen thus far. NiGHTS's wide, cheery smile shrunk and gradually wilted away. His rosy cheeks faded to a dull cream color. His shiny eyes froze over. For a while afterwards, he only hovered lifelessly in front of Reala's cot, an awful, grave expression fixed over his face. His head was tucked down, the ends of his purple striped horns flopping in towards his collar.

"N-NiGHTS..." Tiana whispered after a whole half-hour had passed. "Are you all right?"

"Huh? Oh, Tiana..." NiGHTS softly turned around, showing her a tiny smile, though she could tell that it was forced. "I'm fine. I'm just keeping watch for now..."

"You're really worried about him, aren't you?" Tiana could tell...the way NiGHTS was always fussing over Reala and staring at his resting form, with that look on his face. He always did look a little sad whenever he went to bed so early.

"Oh...well, yes..." NiGHTS softly admitted, floating a bit closer to the side of her bed. "I...have to do something now. And I still don't know what's wrong with him... I don't know if I'm doing a good enough job."

Tiana bit her lip. She needed to ask him about their relationship, but now might not be the best time. She didn't want to trouble him any more. "Um, but..." she uneasily began to speak up. "...Things are different now. It seemed like...it was getting better. He's kind of...different from when I first met him."

Another tiny smile popped up on NiGHTS's face again...but this time, it was for real.

"And...it's because of you..." Tiana softly continued. "The way you two play around together...and...and the other day, when he was laughing..."

NiGHTS's smile glowed in the dim light of the room. "I know," his gentle voice replied. "Ree hasn't laughed like that in a really, really long time. Not even before... And I think it's because of _you_."

"Me?" Tiana frowned with confusion. "But you were the one who..."

"I said plenty of funny things to him before, trying to get him to laugh. But he would never respond. He was always so focused on trying to find an Explorer and surveying every piece of his realm... He was always so uptight and serious about everything. But now, he has you, so he can finally relax a little bit."

Tiana's head turned down towards her rug. _I have _that _much of an effect on him? But...he's always the same to me. He never jokes around with me, like he does with NiGHTS. I...I wish I could make him laugh like that... _

NiGHTS's smile beamed back at her again. Then, he turned his head back to glance over his shoulder. Reala was sound asleep by now, the fuzzy side of the aqua blanket gently rising and falling. NiGHTS's face transformed back into that dreadful, grave expression once again. "I have to go."

"Oh..." Tiana wondered why NiGHTS left when he did. He didn't leave every night, and his disappearances were never consistent. But now didn't seem like a good time to ask about that either.

"I'll be back tomorrow," he told her, as he began to float away towards Reala's cot. "Well, I hope. I should be."

"Okay," Tiana simply replied. "...Good night."

"Good night." NiGHTS turned to give her another tiny smile...before gliding easily through the open window. Now...it was time. He was ready. The completion of his task was finally at hand.

(-)

And then...there he was. Reala could actually watch this time as the throne room twisted and morphed into being, solidifying and taking shape around him. He saw the long, pointed, checkered walls jut up at the dark sky in the distance. He watched three large pots with long spikes on the sides explode into being in the air around him. He marveled as the smooth, red-and-black floor unrolled itself far below him. And then, he felt the sturdy coolness of the throne's high platform push against his feet.

Instantly, a spark of panic and determination shot through his chest, and he leaped off into the air as if the throne was made of red-hot iron. Swiftly, he circled around, behind the tall, spiked backboard of the throne, clutching the round edge of the left spike and carefully peering around it. Just barely, he noticed a large, black-and-red striped boot and one muscled blue arm placed over the nearest armrest. Nothing. Neither moved an inch.

Reala mentally breathed a sigh of relief, poking his head a little further behind the chair again, for protection. _Thank God. He didn't see me. Or at least he didn't take notice of me. I'll never be able to get at those claws by confronting him directly. My best bet is to wait here and look for an opportunity to catch him off guard. If everything follows the same pattern, the former NiGHTS should be coming in a little while. Hopefully, that'll distract him enough for me to find an opening..._

He wasn't yet sure of what he was going to do once he _did _get the claws off, but hopefully, the situation would present itself. Removing his claws would be the same as removing his mask...and he already knew what happened with the mask.

Reala couldn't help but feel a small knot of anxiety building in his chest. Everything in this dream now felt completely and utterly real. He could see every round, shiny edge of the throne in perfect, sharp clarity. If this dream was the same as the last three, it was going to be several minutes before NiGHTS arrived. He'd just have to hover here behind this throne and keep watch.

This throne... Smoothly, Reala ran one hand along the length of the nearest striped spike. He had once had a throne. That fact had never impacted him that much before.

_"The best you can do..." "You were unable to fulfill your purpose..." "He's the one..." "The only way..." "...destroy you..." "...disposable..." "...nothing in your power..." _

_He...he used to value me... _Reala's hand pressed tightly against the side of the spike, suddenly hoping to hold on to it for as long as he possibly could. _He used to be proud of having me...He used to protect me... Wizeman... He used to put me on display..._

His teeth clenched into a nasty snarl against the hard, smooth surface. _...Like his favorite doll. _

Just as Reala turned away from the back of the throne again to look into the endless, hazy sky, a small tug came from within him. It was like some kind of emotion, though he couldn't exactly place what it was. All he knew was that it made him want to move. He shuddered and forced his body to remain in place. _It's almost time..._

Almost time? Almost time for NiGHTS to appear? Reala wrenched his head up, around the side of the spike, but he still couldn't see anything. Why had he just thought that...?

_He did this to us. He's the one responsible. He's the one who destroyed everything. _

Who was...? But he knew. He knew who he was thinking about. That bright, peach-colored face smiled back at him...purple striped horns flopping down aruond it. It was all a lie. Everything he had ever shown him was a _lie_! He could feel the rage burning up from within him. This was all his fault!

A purple speck began to appear amongst the hazy, dark brown-colored clouds in the distance...growing closer and closer each second.

_He rejected us. He rejected me. He rejected this amazing world of darkness and despair. Our beautiful sorrow... How could he just throw it all away? Like it doesn't even matter? Like it's completely worthless? _How could he_?!_

The long, thin purple body glided silently forward, the gentle aura of Dualization lighting him from within.

Reala's body clenched closer inwards as a terrible, agonizing feeling came over him. Confusion, and dejection, and determination, and anger, anger, anger... _This is my mission. I must fulfill my purpose. For my master...for my world...the world where I belong...for the one who gave me life. _He could feel the connection...the deep personal connection he had with that dark void...with that giant, stately figure...always watching out for him and caring for him. _I won't allow you to destroy all of what I have worked so hard for! I _will _destroy you, NiGHTS!_

NiGHTS's small body slipped over the spiked border of the throne room...and then came to a halt. The light of Dualization quivered...and his bright face suddenly began to turn pale. "Reala..."

The thick, muscled arm pushed off from its checkered armrest. Two large, striped feet stood over the rounded base. The arm bent upwards. Scarred aqua eyes squeezed themselves closed. And two long, sharp yellow claws pressed themselves to a round blue forehead.

_NiGHTS. No. Forget about NiGHTS. NiGHTS rejected it all. NiGHTS threw it all away. Forget about him. He has no place in my heart. No place in my mind. I will forever erase him--destroy him. Wipe him straight out of existence. No. NiGHTS does not exist. NiGHTS never has existed. NiGHTS? Who's NiGHTS? _

It tore itself away, thrusting up to the heavens, declaring for the universe to hear.

"There is no NiGHTS!"

Reala's eyes burst open. Fuzzy colors barely flickered before his eyes. It was external. That voice. That voice which did not belong to him. _My...memories..._

There was the throne, the sky, the flames, and that twisted, dark creature, standing firmly in challenge against the world around him...one blazing yellow claw extended above his head.

Reala reacted instantly. All in one lightning flash, he thrust himself off from the end spike of the throne, darting forward...violently crashing against his former self, and seizing his thick, clawed hand in the air with all of the strength he possessed.

"_Hhhyah_!" The claw came down on him, piercing fingers slashing him backwards through the air. Reala reeled back around, clutching his chest, where the slash wounds were burning.

"_You_!" The horrid, resonating voice of the other Reala screamed out. His warped, freakish face twisted into the most evil and enraged glare it had ever yet produced. "I will _not _let you get in my way!!"

"I know..." Reala breathed, meeting his own eyes with a resolute stare. "I remember."

The other Reala launched himself off the end of the throne, attacking with a terrible swiftness, and Reala barely had enough time to swerve out of the way. "You think you can pose as me?!"

Reala looped around, shooting back up and trying to catch hold of his hands again. But the other Reala only clenched them into awkward half-fists and violently swiped at him again. He dove down after him, sending a flurry of rapid slashes and kicks at his center. Reala again barely shot out of his grasp.

"You are nothing like me! You will _never _match my power and status!" The other Reala tore after him, his teeth gnashed together against the blasting air. "You are nothing but an imposter--a _mockery _of my potential! Did you _ever _think you might be able to take my place?!"

Reala tried to dive away towards one of the floating pots, but all of a sudden, a meaty arm collided with his chest, sending him crashing into the tall base of the throne. He fell away again a moment later...before he felt something fiercely yank his right arm to the side.

"Heh..." That twisted voice resounded from every angle, though he could feel its hot breath on his sensors. "Heh heh heh..."

Reala's head snapped around...to see his dark likeness floating behind him and squeezing his arm between the sharp points of his claws.

"Just look at you..." he hissed, the syllables dripping off his tongue like poison. He slid Reala's sleeve down, exposing the pale blue skin of his narrow arm and poking his claws even tighter around it. "You call these little sticks 'arms'? How pathetic."

A surge of anger and resolution shot through Reala's body and he violently wrenched himself away from his other self, twisting back around in the air to fix him with a dangerous glare of his own. "I _doesn't matter_ what I look like!" he brutally protested. But then, his voice softened...when he remembered where he'd heard this line before. "...I'm still stronger than you are."

"What did you say?!" The other Reala quickly adjusted one of his arm guards and shot off after him again.

They whirled through the air around the throne, swerving and dodging and swiping at each other with furious determination. Their reddish forms flashed past, flipping and twisting across the area in their swift aerial battle. At times, it almost seemed as if they were one large, red-and-black being, the living, writhing heart of this twisted dimension.

In the distance, NiGHTS gently angled down...one foot lightly tapping against one of the border spikes. His mysterious inner glow gradually faded out. He cocked his head at the image of the two Realas struggling against each other in mid-air...and smiled.

While his past self was stronger, physically, Reala found that he could actually fly faster, and concentrated on taking every opportunity he could to use this new advantage against him. But no matter how quickly he circled around him or shot out from behind one of the throne's spikes, he could never manage to get a firm enough hold on the claws before he made another powerful swipe at him.

Reala pushed himself ahead, arriving above the top of the throne before his likeness, and wrenched one hand open. For an instant, he felt his arm pulsating with the power he was building up within it...and nothing happened. His empty palm flashed before his face as he desperately squeezed his fingers in and out, trying to produce one of his energy spheres. Nothing. Why wasn't it working?! He just barely had enough time to flip out of the way as a thick, red-and-black head crashed into the spike just below him.

Reala clenched his teeth together, tightening every muscle of his body as he pulled himself up and around though the air, avoiding the other Reala's continued blows. He couldn't keep this up forever. Already, he could feel his energy failing, his breath coming out in ragged gasps. He _had _to find some way of getting those claws off. Just the claws of his left hand. Those were the only ones that mattered.

_I'm _not _weak..._ he growled. even as he felt the tugging heaviness of his limbs when he again spiraled away from the other Reala's attack. _I'm stronger. I know better. I've got to find a way, somehow. There's got to be some way of stopping this. I _willnot _let him beat me!!_

Just then, the other Reala yanked himself back...and burst into the fastest, most powerful drill dash he could muster, rocketing straight towards him like a comet.

"_Guh_!" Reala quickly seized the nearest fire-pot, squeezing the two curving spikes on the side like handlebars. And just in time. In a booming crash, which thundered through the darkness around them, the other Reala smashed into the side of the pot with so much force that both it and the real Reala were smashed backwards into the side of the throne. A spidery crackling noise tripped across Reala's senses as the thick wall in front of him crumbled into tiny pieces, the blue flames within them flickering and dying.

A crushing force then grasped his arm, pinning them firmly out against the throne's checkered base. "Heh heh heh..." Reala's face curled in disgust at the feel of his own putrid laughter against his skin. The thick, mighty trunk of his own past body loomed over him, the disturbing, unnatural blueness of his face and those deep, angled eyes leering down into his own.

_No_. Reala firmly denied. _I will never let you defeat me. _

Those sinister claws squeezed closer around his arms in anticipation. His long, black lips curled up in a wicked, taunting smirk. "Pathetic."

Reala stared straight ahead, into his wide, muscled chest...and narrowed his eyes. _No. I will never let you hold me back. _

"Now, prepare to be eradi--"

Reala simply raised one leg...and pressed the toe of his boot straight over the wide, bare, blue diamond in the center of his chest. He saw those malicious blue eyes bulge all the way openn in shock. Instantly, his former body was paralyzed. It fell away from his arms, rushing backwards to the checkered ground.

Reala acted swiftly. As soon as he was released from his bindings, he shot down into a steep dive after him. He met his former body in mid-air just before it hit the ground...and tore the yellow claw straight off its left hand.

The other Reala landed, his large boots skidding backwards against the smooth floor. He stared blankly ahead, his confident smirk now replaced by a terrible expression of utter bewilderment...and even fear.

Reala softly lowered himself to the ground in front of him, holding the heavy, hollow claw clutched within one long-nailed hand. He knew now. He was sure of it. He held the claw above his head, waiting...and watching.

The other Reala panted, his thick chest heaving. Not from exhaustion...but from the pure impact of what had just happened to him. He didn't even know what _had _just happened to him. Something terrible. All he knew was that something was wrong. Something _was_ wrong. Something was very, very wrong. At last, his eyes again focused, the image before him softly solidifying. And then, he knew what was wrong.

"YEEEEEAAAAAUGH!!" that otherwordly voice shrieked out at the top of its lungs. And the body automatically barreled forward, desperately, lunging at the slight creature before him, violently extending his hand to tear his treasured claw out its grasp.

With his other hand, Reala instantly reached forward, catching his thick, black arm guard and freezing him to the spot. His pallid, shriveled hand trembled in mid-air, just inches away from the neon yellow claw. His black-lipped mouth fell open, breathless. His eyes bulged open again...as he got a look at his own, real hand for the first time in his life.

Reala turned his head down, meeting those frozen, panicked eyes...and for a moment, his own softened just a tiny bit. "I remember that feeling..."

The other Reala slowly turned to look back at him, his chest heaving below him in confusion and terror. And at last, it was a face he could fully recognize as his.

And then, with one final jab, Reala ripped the long, puffy black glove from the end of his arm. Instantly, the body fell away...those wide eyes glazing over...and crashed to the smooth, rock-hard ground below, with chilling finality. It was limp, lifeless, useless...soulless. It was all over now.

Reala lowered his arm, letting the claw fall, insignificantly against the floor with a dull clack...and turned to examine the arm guard. There was a thin zipper, barely visible, running around the red-and-purple circular bubble at its front side. Carefully, he found the metal tab and pulled it open, flipping the circle flap over the side, limply. And there, in the dark, cushioned hollow inside of it...was a small, round, red, sparkling crystal. The fragment of his "master's" soul.

Reala's graying lips scowled at the sight. He shoved the arm guard away, leaving it to fall next to the motionless body and the other pieces of his former existence. He glared down at the lifeless puppet of his body, and the little tools used to control and power it. His own voice came out, cold and solemn, reflecting back off the shiny surfaces around him. "Pathetic."

And then it was gone. The entire world dissolved into pure, pitch blackness, though the atmosphere still felt cold and slightly uncomfortable. Though he could no longer see the floor, he could feel something solid underneath him, holding him up.

Reala quickly glanced around him. _Is it over? _he dimly wondered. _Did I beat it? Is the dream over now? Am I waking up? _

Nothing was happening. He didn't feel like he was waking up at all. In fact, instead of getting clearer, his head only felt as if it was becoming more cloudy and muddled.

The tension was gradually fading out of his body. He sighed in relief. It was over. He'd won. That he was sure of.

_Yes..._ A voice softly emanated out of nowhere, like a gentle light illuminating the darkened world. And Reala suddenly realized that he could still see his own body perfectly, as if he was glowing somehow.

_Wizeman cannot take over the entire Dreaming World with his power and the manipulation of ideya alone. He needs the power of this universe's own guardians--the very forces which prevent him from extending his influence--in order to make any kind of impact. _

Reala glanced around him again, desperately trying to find the source of the mysterious voice. It sounded kind of familiar... He scowled again.

_With this power on his side, nothing would remain to stop him. But it was near impossible to convince them to come of their own free will. _

Another strange noise was beginnning to bubble up into existence, and Reala immediately pinpointed its location in the black nothingness far ahead of him. It was a crackle, then a piercing, high-pitched honking...then it faded again to a lighter snapping. It was growing closer, louder and more distinct by the moment.

_No..._ Reala realized. _That's not just a noise. It's a voice. Someone is...laughing. _The edges of his mouth pushed down even more. _This is getting really suspicious... _

_Initially, he couldn't get either of the guardians to join him. He had been trying for years. _

"_Yiiiiahahahahahahaha_! _Eeeeheeheehee_! _Waheehahahahahaha_!!"

_So when he built his most powerful Nightmaren, to challenge the powers of the realms, he decided he didn't need the guardians. He would make one of his own. _

"WOOOHEEHAHAHA!!"

At last, the laughing creature moved into the light in front of Reala, revealing its true form, floating in the air above him. Two patterned orange boots hung suspended about a yard before him. One long, shadowed cape flowed down above them, its white points folding around to the front. There was a floating pair of gloves to match, currently clenched upwards towards the collar of the cape. And there was the face...with bulging blue eyes and a wild, toothy grin...poking out from below a sort of orange hat. The hat curled upwards in the back, forming two long horn-like extensions which flopped over above its head. It was colored with random blue and yellow stripes...a facsimile of the natural sensors which grew out of Reala and NiGHTS's own heads.

This creature...just looking at its crazed, barbaric existence sent a tiny shiver through Reala's heart. Because he could see a little bit of himself in its design. It had a similar collar, a round, floating head...and those horns...

"...Hello?" he gently spoke to it, trying to get it to communicate.

"WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" it shrieked, flying up and around in the air before him. It left no sparkles behind. "KYEEHEEHAHAHA!!"

"Hello...?" Reala tried again, desperately taking a step closer to it. Suddenly, he needed to understand it better. He needed to know more about it. "Can you...speak to me? Can you understand?"

"YAHAHEEHAHEEHAHEEHA!!" The creature turned his crazy, hyperactive grin towards him again and chomped its giant teeth together in some kind of mimicry of speaking. "KEEKEEKEEKEEKEE!!" It flipped around in the air, clutching its long cape around its nonexistent body as if this was the funniest thing in the world.

"I guess that would be a no..." Reala glared back at the inhuman creature turning rapid somersaults before him...and felt disgusted to know that they were even connected.

And just like that, it evaporated into the darkness, its screeching laughter grinding to a halt.

_But..._ the soft, familiar, guiding voice continued. _Being only a Nightmaren, that creature was lacking the one thing that made the guardians' power so special and unattainable to Wizeman. A soul of its own. A mind of its own. Free will. _

_Free will... _Reala lowered his head, his hands squeezing into determined fists. He knew now. He knew what this was all about. He could figure it out now. He felt the anger churning and pulsing up within him. How could he...?! Reala broke into a sprint now, racing as fast as he could through this world of blackness on foot. He had to find him. He had to stop this. He had to make him stop this!

_And so...craving for that elusive power, he forged the most potent pieces of soul energy out of two of his own soul crystals. He knew that the guardians also possessed soul crystals like these. If he could separate them from their soul crystals...and replace them..._

Reala could hear his own panting breath, even as the voice echoed from above him. He ran, blindly, through this endless nothingness, glancing in each direction. Only, of course, he couldn't see anything. His teeth clenched together with frustration. This was getting ridiculous.

_...He would be able to alter their minds. To manipulate their thoughts and memories, with the help of magic-infused "symbols of loyalty". And though, in the end, he was only able to capture one of them...he could still use this to his advantage. He could overthrow the only powers in his way. He could turn them against each other. He could destroy the Balance..._

"_NiGHTS_!" Reala finally burst out into the dark depth of the world...and immediately, everything was deadly still and silent. Reala's labored breathing and the pulsating of his crystal pounded heavily against his sensors. Even the atmosphere seemed to become suddenly stale and hard to breathe. "I know you're there..." his hard voice was low, but so loud in the utter silence of this black nothingness. "So just come out and face me already."

The terrible, tense silence continued. Nothing moved. Not even the air stirred. For a moment, Reala thought he might disappear into this silent world...forget how to talk...or even how to breathe. He was already trying to suppress his breath...to slow his heart to a stop.

And then...the darkness before him began to peel away. The very fabric of this dimension seemed to waver and morph before his eyes...and then, something tall and purple began to glow out from within. The darkness softly fell away. And there he was.

NiGHTS opened glowing blue eyes to him. His purple and pink outfit shined out in perfect, solid clarity, and his long white sleeves were even brighter. He was real, Reala immediately knew. Not another dreamlike illusion or reflection...like the image of his former self, or the appearance of that imitation guardian. This was the physical NiGHTS...in his own elements. He looked so different from his usual chipper demeanor. So solemn...even a little forlorn.

Reala only glared hardly back into that face, unaffected by its appearance. "_Why_...?!"

"I..." NiGHTS's head tipped down, averting his eyes. He couldn't look into his brother's cold, angry face any longer. It was going to break his heart. "I...I had to tell you somehow."

"But why _this_?!" Reala's frustration burst out of him. "Why couldn't you just _tell_ me?! You had to go behind my back and mess with my consciousness...my emotions like this?! You had to _use me_ like this?!"

NiGHTS visibly recoiled, and for one brief moment, Reala felt a little guilty for upsetting him. _But he deserves it_, his mind firmly asserted. _I remember--being the guardian of the Dreaming World, NiGHTS has the power to create small dream worlds for others using his own knowledge and memories. But he can't just use it on me whenever he wants without my permission! He's been invading my own private thoughts! To think I've had _him_ crawling around in my mind while I've been asleep..._

"I..." NiGHTS pressed one shining white glove to his face, his light voice wavering. "I-I'm sorry..." The small curves of his shoulders were beginning to tremble against their dark outlining. "I just... Just telling you wouldn't be enough... I had to...I had to make you _see_...to understand what it really means. To understand...all that I've been through..."

Reala froze...and those images and feelings from just a short while ago again flooded his mind. That malicious, leering face that used to be his own, that echoing, alien voice...all the tension building in his chest in the heat of battle... Those raging thoughts and emotions that had filled his mind. In a flash, he could see NiGHTS's clear purple form racing ahead of him...then suddenly being surrounded by a deep black hole of nothingness. And the pain. The terrible searing pain which threatened to rip his skin clean off. Reala furrowed his forehead, deeply, trying to put it back out of his mind.

"I-It _hurt_!" NiGHTS cried out, small shining teardrops beginning to squeeze out below his eyes. "It hurt _me_... Every time I had to hurt you... A-And it was even worse the first time. Every time I hit you...th-this terrible shock went through my body, and I couldn't move. I-I didn't want to hurt you...I _don't_ want to hurt you..."

Reala looked up into his brother's anguished face again...and a new set of memories began to flash through his head. Trying to rip NiGHTS's white-sleeved arms from around his waist, whapping him over the head with a rolling pin, spinning around with him in mid-air, trying to tackle him and being tackled back, NiGHTS's pure, joyful, giggling face bending close over him, that wonderful moment of calming serenity, just sitting in the bathtub together.

NiGHTS's face twisted in agony, his pale skin and jewel-like eyes scarcely visible over his clutched hands. "I just need you to understand." He gulped back tears. "So you can try to resist it. Because...because I..." He looked back up into that face. That very, very familiar face. The face of his brother. His friend. His partner in the universe. And he felt his heart clutch. He tore his hands away from his mouth at last. "_I just can't do this anymore_!!"

Immediately, Reala lunged forward, seizing him by the shoulders, slamming his light body backwards against the infinite darkness. A weak yelp of alarm escaped from his trembling lips. "You _have _to!!" Reala snapped, glaring furiously into NiGHTS's timid, tearful face. "You _have _to do this!! I _want _you to do this!!"

"Uwuh..." NiGHTS's body clutched again, the tears pouring freely down his cheeks. But Reala couldn't stop now.

"If that happens again, you have to do it! Promise me! I want you to fight me! I want you to fight me with everything you've got!! _I want you to kill me_!!"

"I...I can't..." NiGHTS's voice choked out. "I don't want to..."

At last, Reala lowered a bit, loosening up on his shoulders. He sighed, heavily, trying to calm down. "You must."

"I...don't want that to happen..." NiGHTS softly whispered. "...Ever, ever again..."

"Me neither." And softly, Reala pulled him closer...into a warm and reassuring hug.

NiGHTS's eyes widened against his chest, even as the tears continued to trickle down his cheeks.

"But you have to promise me. If that ever does happen again...you can't just give up. You can't let me stand in the way. You do whatever you can to defeat Wizeman. It's...what I want. Promise me."

"Ah..." Another little tug pulled at NiGHTS's heart. He would have to... But...

"I..." Slowly, he lifted his arms...and brought them up around his brother's waist, snuggling his head in, close to his warm soul crystal. "I promise."

_He was right about that_, Reala secretly admitted. _I hate being the cause of his anxiety... _He brought one hand up, comfortingly brushing NiGHTS's sensors. _I'm always just making him miserable..._

"And...I promise too," he added, aloud. "I'll do everything I possibly can to make sure that never happens again. I don't want to be your enemy. I don't want to lose my memories again. I don't want to...lose everything."

NiGHTS closed his eyes, soothed by the warm, gentle feeling of Reala rubbing his sensors. His tears were begining to dry now. He smiled. "Thank you," he whispered. "Thank you so much, Reala."

Reala's hand froze. "And uh...while I still don't appreciate you messing with my dreams like that, I guess it did teach me a few things...about myself. So...er...thank you too...I guess..."

NiGHTS couldn't help but giggle at the awkward sound of his voice. "You're welcome."

And then, at last, the world began to disappear. "Wh-what?" Reala asked, pulling away from NiGHTS and looking around, but he couldn't see anything at all. Even NiGHTS's form was steadily growing blurrier and harder to see. "N-NiGHTS? What are you...?"

He disappeared completely, and Reala suddenly couldn't even find his own thoughts. He imagined his eyes closing...and then, there was nothing. It wasn't the blackness of this empty world...just nothing. Complete blankness. It was all over...for real this time.

(-)

Reala slid his eyes open again. There was the bumpy white ceiling, the lumps of the mattress pushing against his back, the streaks of bright sunlight wavering against the walls, the muffled twittering of birds outside. Again, he'd missed his ceremony. Only this time, no one minded.

He sat up on the cot, pushing the blanket off of him. It felt so awkward, all of a sudden, to think that that had all just been a dream. But, of course, that didn't mean it hadn't been real.

Again, Tiana was missing from her bed, already gone to meet the bus. Reala sighed. He was alone again. At least, this time, he didn't feel so uncomfortable. He'd beaten his past self. He knew he had been controlled before and _how_ he had been controlled...and everything that had happened then. He could move on from it now, and focus on regaining his realm. He was stronger...and more determined than ever not to let Wizeman get ahold of him again. He couldn't make NiGHTS go through that a third time. Twice was far more than enough.

_Tap. Tap tap tap tap tap tap..._

Reala whirled around at the strange noise...to see a white glove knocking against the windowpane, a very familiar purple-horned head floating above it and smiling. For a moment, their eyes met through the glass...and they both melted into tiny, knowing smiles.

Reala reached forward and slid the window up, letting NiGHTS fly into the room and circle around the ceiling, happily. Everything was so quiet as he gently lowered again, hovering peacefully close to the side of the cot. Reala turned his head again to meet his gaze.

"..._Yay, Reeeeeeeeeee_!!"

"_Aaaarrgh_!!"

NiGHTS suddenly leaped forward, tackling him to the mattress and squishing his sensors into his face. "You won, you won, you _wooooonnnnn_!!"

"_Stop that_!" Reala kicked NiGHTS over the edge of the cot, and he flopped into a heap on the floor, still giggling like a maniac. He popped back up a moment later, completely unaffected.

"Yaaaayyy!!"

Reala groaned, sitting up again and cradling his head in his hand. "_Why _did I let you come in the window again?"

NiGHTS grinned, teasingly. "Because you love me."

And all was right with the world.


	8. Twin Seeds: The Reality of Humanity

Pretty long chapter, again, but at least it's shorter than the last. But not by much.

Also, be warned--this chapter is the sole reason why this story is rated T instead of K-Plus. Remember those "disturbing images" I mentioned? This chapter by itself could very well be rated M, if I was a little more descriptive. It's only brief--but some very uncomfortable subjects are mentioned here, so feel free to take a break from reading it or leave off reading it altogether, but continue with the expectations of encountering something very unpleasant.

I've built this up to be the most important chapter in the story--it contains the original idea on which a lot of this story was constructed. And as such, I'm not exactly satisfied with it myself...but we must press on. Three more chapters remain to be written.

Special thanks to shokokchan (or shokogoddess11) who offered to do some fanart for me. I haven't seen it yet, but just the offer is appreciated. Once it's finished, I'll give her another special thanks!

Now that school has begun again, I have no idea when I'll have the time to update. But I have the next chapter started, at least.

Reala, NiGHTS, Awakers, Claris, Elliot exc. belong to Sonic Team. I own Tiana, Ms. Weaver, and that's it.

(-)

Chapter 8: Twin Seeds: The Reality of Humanity

_Dng dng dnnnnnnng...Dn-dnn dnn dnng...dn-dn dn dng dnnnnnnnn..._

Tiana strained her ears just to confirm that she really was hearing it. She glanced over at her alarm clock, but it displayed the same time. _What in the...?!_ At last, she turned around, as the familiar chords continued drifting out from the other side of the room...and stared back in pure confusion.

Reala was casually seated over the edge of the cot, his arms folded up near his chest, his fingers nimbly plucking at invisible strings.A small group of Awakers--much less than normal--were gathered around him, soaking it in. And it was exactly 7:26 PM. The blackness of nighttime seeped through the window behind him.

_He _never_ plays the lyre at night_, Tiana remembered. _Except for the first time. It was late afternoon then. But I think that was something special. _

But she couldn't say anything about it. She was transfixed to the sight. It had been a while since she'd seen him play again, because he kept sleeping late. The sound of the soft, flowing music brought her back to that time, in the very beginning. Before she knew about NiGHTS. Before she'd seen the Voidables. When it was just her and Reala. For some reason, she felt that she might not mind that now. She still didn't entirely trust him, but...she felt that she knew a lot more about him now. Just looking at him sparked a light tug within her heart. The connection.

Her book lied against the bed, completely forgotten, as she closed her eyes...sharing in his serenity. To think that once, she'd been creeped out by the Awakers, that once, she'd been afraid of Reala, that at one time, she'd thought that the world was boring and useless. It was so wonderfully peaceful and secure, right here...just listening to this smooth, familiar song. Images faded into her consciousness...the clear, wavering water, flickering and pulsating with colorful life...the shining points of ice and the powdery dusting of snow... All the love, care, and harmony there was in the world.

Lately, she'd been doing a few things at school that she would normally never do. She displayed her drawings in her locker, she picked up pieces of trash in her classrooms, she apologized for bumping into people, and she made an effort to talk to her project partners. She was still sitting alone at the lunch table, but she had a mind to change that soon. And she didn't even feel any different about it.

_Well, nothing's ever going to change if I don't do anything about it_, she reasoned. _That's just common sense. Why should I let these small opportunities pass by? I want to know more...about them. This place. _And as she listened to Reala's resonating tune, she felt absolutely sure of it. _Everything's going to be fine..._

At last, the song came to an end, and Reala folded his white-sleeved arms over his chest, the magical lyre fading back...into his soul. The spell broke, and he opened his eyes again, though a glimmer of that serenity remained on his face for just a moment. The Awakers' little black eyes popped open, and they floated up off the cot, though they still remained by his side.

"Ah..." Tiana gradually came out of her own trance as well, and met his clear blue eyes. "Um..." She had to fumble forward, just to find her words again. "Why were you doing that _now_?" she finally asked. "Don't you usually do that in the morning?"

"Well, I haven't done it in quite a while," Reala's voice sounded low and a bit mysterious. "I've been oversleeping. So I figured I'd play for a little bit. It helps me concentrate. And it's a good thing I did."

Tiana frowned at his awkward speech. "Why is that?"

"Your final reality portal has appeared."

A spark of panic ignited within Tiana's chest. "W-What?! _Now_?! The _final _portal?! But...I thought I had _two _more ideya to receive!"

"You do." Suddenly, a long purple figure floated into the room, between them. "But this would be your final _reality_. It's the same way with my Dreamers. There is so reality, or dream, for your last ideya. You will have to produce it on your own."

Reala nodded. "Yep."

A cold silence swept over the room. _I have to produce it on my own? _Tiana thought. _How am I supposed to do that? Well, maybe it's another one of those things... Like how I'm somehow producing these portals, even though I have no idea how I'm doing it. Maybe it'll just...happen. Hopefully..._

"Eeeyaaaa!" NiGHTS yelped, leaping back, when he finally noticed the Awakers. Their round, floating bodies also jerked back when they heard NiGHTS's voice, and immediately shot out of the window, leaving white streaks behind. Reala groaned.

"I thought I told you to warn me!" NiGHTS cried, curling up in mid-air and wringing out his sensors.

"Well, you should've looked before just barging in on us like that! That's your problem--you never think about anyone else's privacy! How would you like it if I just flew up and interrupted _you _in the middle of playing your little flutey thing?!"

"You already _did_! At least _twice_!"

"Well, I was purposely trying to catch you off guard, so I could capture you!"

"But you should've known that wouldn't work, since I can sense your presence!"

"How was I supposed to know? My entire memory was wiped clean, remember?!"

"Guys, guys!" Tiana raised her voice above their argument. "Can we get back to discussing the _portal_ here?"

"Oh, yes," Reala immediately broke off, satisfied with having the last word. NiGHTS gave him a frustrated look behind his back, but kept his mouth shut. "The portal." He pushed off from the cot. "Are you ready to go?"

"_Now_?!" Tiana whirled back around towards the clock, which now read '7:38'. "It's late!"

"So?" Reala challenged. "Going through a reality only takes about half an hour. And I certainly don't want to have to wait until morning, when I'll have to deceive your mother for you again and all that rigamarole..."

"I mean...isn't this around the time you usually go to bed?"

Reala paused. _True_, he thought, _it's almost eight o' clock._ As soon as he recognized the time, he began to feel a bit drowsy. He closed his eyes. _Maybe I can just lie down for a few minutes..._ He shook himself, forcing the heavy feelings out of his head. _No! I can't go to sleep now! The final portal is here! What am I thinking?!_

"No, no, I'm fine," he stoicly replied. "I'm not tired at all." And just then, his face muscles involuntarily contracted, and he clenched his jaw down, grinding his teeth against each other.

NiGHTS rolled his eyes. "Sure. And that's why you suppressed a yawn just now."

"Yawn?" Reala whirled on him. "I don't yawn. There's no need to, since I don't actually need oxygen. You should know that..."

"So are we going or what?" Tiana swung her legs over the side of her bed, reaching down to tie her sneakers onto her feet. She couldn't let them waste any more time arguing. They had to get in and out of this portal as quickly as possible.

"Yes, we're going!" Reala decided, leaving NiGHTS again and floating to her side. "Hurry up and get those big, clunky shoes on. It's time for you to banish some more Voidables for me."

"Okay, okay!" Tiana complained. "I'm going as fast as I can!" She swiftly looped the shoestrings into bows.

"B-But..." NiGHTS spoke out. "You can't...not when you're tired. You shouldn't push yourself to..."

"I'll be _fine_," Reala coldly insisted. "I won't let any tiredness get in my way. We'll be back again within a half-hour, you'll see."

Tiana frowned and glanced back at NiGHTS as she stood. She felt like she should say something to him, but couldn't think of what.

"You guard the bedroom while we're gone and make sure her mother doesn't come in here," Reala commanded him. NiGHTS only scowled in response.

"We're off, then." Before either of them had a chance to exchange grim expressions, he ushered her out of the room and closed the door behind them. Thankfully, Ms. Weaver was too distracted with her finances in the adjacent room to even notice.

Tiana couldn't help tugging nervously on the ends of her black hooded sweatshirt as she followed the floating red-and-white jester through her apartment. _This is the final reality? I don't really feel ready for it. I didn't expect it to come so suddenly. This is...it? Well, I have another ideya after that. But no more reality portals..._ An awful, creeping feeling of dread started up in her heart. _It's coming to an end. The beginning of the end. What happens after I create the final ideya? Reala will have his realm back. And does that mean...I won't be able to see him anymore? He and NiGHTS...will disappear? They'll...leave me. He never told me. He's going to leave. _

Tiana glanced up at Reala's pale, stony face and narrowed her brown eyes. _Well...he doesn't care. He didn't bother telling me, because it doesn't matter to him. He probably just thinks of me as his tool. After I've defeated the Voidables, he doesn't need me anymore. All those times when he saved me...he was probably just trying to make sure I stayed alive, because he needs me alive. It's...not like we were ever friends or anything. _

She averted her eyes as Reala turned to check on her. She wasn't even sure why she felt this way. Maybe because NiGHTS and Reala had been around her for so long. But now, for some inexplicable reason, she felt as if she had more in common with Reala...much more than with NiGHTS. She wanted to know him better. She wanted his approval. She wanted him to laugh for her. She wanted to be more than just his tool.

"What are you moping about now?" They had reached the bottom of the stairwell, and Tiana had been too lost in thought to even notice.

"I-I'm not _moping_ about anything," she quickly snapped back. "Just...thinking..." She glanced over at the forest-green door next to her which led to the first-floor apartment. _I better keep it down. The Panzinis might say something to my mother if they hear me "talking to myself" like this..._

"Well, here we are," Reala brusquely told her. "It's just past this door."

_"Just past this door"? _Tiana stared, confusedly at her own wooden front door. "You mean...the portal appeared _right outside my own house_?!"

Reala moved forward and casually tapped against the surface with a knuckle. "Right in the doorway, actually."

"What if my mother or one of the Panzinis came out and walked right into it?!"

Reala smirked. "Why, they'd probably be transported halfway across the planet with no way of ever returning." Tiana could only glare daggers back at him, and his smirk only grew wider, into a full-fledged smug grin. "Now aren't you glad you listened to me?"

All of her former friendly feelings had abandoned her--now, she just wanted to punch him through the face.

"So," Reala finally spoke again, falling back into his previous stony countenance. "Are you ready?"

"...No."

Another tiny grin tugged at the edges of his mouth, when he recognized this exchange. "Then too bad."

He forcefully pushed the door open, revealing a familiar, giant, round swirl of dark colors. She may have imagined it, but Tiana even thought she could hear a deep whooshing noise, as the atmospheric streaks rotated around, like the arms of a hurricane. It seemed even more powerful than the previous two. But maybe that was only her imagination too.

Reala's face remained perfectly blank as he stared straight ahead, into its depths. Even _he_ felt a smidgeon of apprehension, but successfully concealed every trace of it. There was something about the concept of the final reality that picked away at him. It wasn't the final ideya, he knew, but there was something unique about it. He couldn't ever remember being through one before, but of course, he couldn't remember going through any of the other realities before Tiana's either. It was probably just because it was the final one. These strange feelings were of no consequence.

Tiana's long brown hair streamed back away from her face, exposing her round, anxious eyes. He couldn't let her know that there were any doubts in his mind. He clamped his hand over her shoulder again, through the thick padding of the sweatshirt. Her muscles tensed underneath it.

Tiana turned forwards again, squinting in challenge against the portal's blast, her new Ideya of Courage rising up to assist her. And that settled it.

Together, they took a step forward...and their bodies were engulfed by the churning dark material. As soon as they had completely disappeared, the portal itself began to shrink. It diminished, and blinked out of existence behind them...as if it had never been there at all.

(-)

NiGHTS hovered to and fro behind the door of Tiana's bedroom, unable to keep still. He wanted to fly after them. He wanted to yell out the window. He wanted to come with them. He wanted to _fly_ out the window and zoom like mad through the entire city, just to shake off this feeling. But he couldn't move from this spot.

For the first time in quite a while, he was truly afraid. Afraid for the world. Afraid for Tiana. Afraid for his brother. He wanted to transport himself back to the Dreaming World right now and grab Owl, just so that he'd have someone to talk to. This silence was going to drive him insane. He'd end up just like Jackle.

_But I really shouldn't tell Owl about all of this..._ NiGHTS disappointedly realized. _He'd have a fit if he found out I've been fraternizing with Ree all this time. I told him I was just checking up on him periodically... And if I even said anything about _that_, he might have a brain implosion or something. Or cease to exist. _

NiGHTS made another figure-eight from the window to the bookcase. _Why now?! _He desperately asked. _Everything was going so perfectly. And to have it so suddenly, in the middle of the night...when he's tired like that. He's weaker... It...it might be even worse..._

NiGHTS forced his body to a stop and sucked in his breath. _C'mon, now. Stop that_, he firmly told himself. _You're the unholder of dreams and hopes. There's no reason to have so little faith. Tiana is different. She's a strong girl. She handled that little reminder very well. Better than I did, I have to say. She'll be alright. I think..._

Still, the terrible, cold dread wouldn't leave him, no matter how much he tried to reaffirm himself. _I know..._I _could never go through all of that..._

At last, in complete panic and desperation, NiGHTS sank down on his knees, praying to whatever God or merciful spirits there might be in the universe. "Please!" he called aloud. "Please...please protect them. Please let them be okay. Please don't let that happen again. Please. Please. Please..."

(-)

As soon as the world felt solid around her again, Tiana opened her eyes. And stared. And then stared some more.

She was in the exact same place, in terms of relative positioning. Her rubber sneaker soles rested against the hard pavement of a sidewalk. Across the street, several houses were squished together in a line, as normal. The street curved around onto a main road to the left. Everything was exactly as she remembered. This looked exactly like her own street. Except it wasn't. The houses looked too _new_. Smooth. They were colored in bluish tones, round, space-age windows bubbling off from the sides. There were hardly any of those curvy, intricate, old-fashioned designs that adorned many of the higher-end houses in Bellbridge.

_Are we in another country? _She wondered. _It may as well be another planet. But it looks so similar...the layout is exactly the same... _"This...this isn't my city," she finally spoke. "It looks like my city. But it's not my city."

"It's the other city," Reala's voice rumbled out, near her left shoulder. "Twin Seeds."

Tiana knitted her brow as she took another panoramic view of this long, unfamiliar street. "Twin Seeds? What a weird name for a city."

"I think it's perfectly appropriate." Reala slipped forward, his arms crossed, as he lifted his head to search the infinite, blackened skies.

Tiana followed his gaze, wondering what he was looking for. It was so dark and mysterious...even a little chilling. The dark expanse was so wide and deep...for a moment, she felt as if it might swallow her...as if she might become pure darkness herself and merge with its composition. And that's when she noticed. "I...don't see any rings."

"Me neither." Reala's voice was steady and emotionless, though on the inside, he was genuinely confused. He couldn't see any rings or any anchor points in the distance. He couldn't even sense any Voidables nearby. Perhaps they had appeared in a different location, further away from where the anchor points actually were. Every reality had Voidables, rings, and anchor points, right? Even if it was the last one. Even if it was supposed to be special somehow. Right?

Reala masked his bewilderment with an annoyed scowl. "Well, we ought to get going, anyway. The rings may be further out, hidden behind the buildings, where we can't see them. We can't afford to just stand around here, waiting for some sign."

Tiana pressed her lips together and nodded. Something about this entire experience just didn't seem right. No rings, no foreign location, no sunlight... _Well, it's the end_, she told herself. _The sun has set. It's over. _

She turned at last, to see Reala's tall, gangly form in front of her again, two pale, claw-like hands extended towards her. Automatically, her own hands leaped forward to join them...but then, she hesitated.

_This makes the fifth time we've Dualized like this. I'm finally completely used to it. And this might be the very last time we Dualize... _Again, Tiana couldn't be exactly sure how she felt about this. She would definitely miss soaring through the sky so easily and naturally. But that wasn't what she had immediately thought of. There was a certain _feeling_...a special state of being Dualized...of sharing her soul with another being. Even if that being was a cold, hard-headed, sarcastic individual who delighted in picking on her. _And I'm never going to see it again... The inside...The inside of his soul... _Of course, there was always that blunt wall of energy, preventing her from seeing all of his heart's contents...but still...lately, a bit more of that sacred inner chamber was being revealed to her. And she didn't want it to stop.

Tiana at last broke away from her turbulent thoughts to see Reala's narrowed eyes goring into her face with impatience. She sighed. She had to do it. It was no use trying to drag the moment out any longer. It had to end...just like everything else.

Tiana extended her black-sleeved arms and pressed her fingers to his waiting palms. His stony frown clearly said, "What the heck took you so long?" _I don't know_, Tiana truthfully answered with her eyes. She closed them tightly, savoring in the sensations of merging souls and flying up into the sky.

A moment later, she opened Reala's eyes to take in the nostalgic sight of a busy city far below. Except now the city was Twin Seeds, and it was wrapped in the darkness of night. The lights from windows and business signs blinked on and off, like a thousand tiny candles.

_Nostalgia?_ Tiana wondered. _I know I flew above Bellbridge the first time...but that was only five weeks ago. _That's when she realized--she was absorbing some of Reala's feelings as well. He obviously knew this city quite well, though she had no clue as to why. And he was preventing her from gleaning any more information about the matter.

"Well," she spoke to him at last. "At least you should know your way around."

Reala lowered his gaze. "I _always _know my way around." And with that, they shot down into a dive towards the twinkling lights of the city buildings, tall structures growing more defined and jutting up around them.

They pulled up out of their decsent, melting into a smooth glide between the high, narrow walls of alleyways and down broad lanes, swerving around traffic lights. People, signs, poles, and all sorts of debris whirled around their joined being. Then suddenly, they barreled into an extremely narrow passage, flipping vertically to the side just in the nick of time. Tiana gasped. Reala suppressed another yawn.

The sleepiness was beginning to creep back in as he relaxed his mind. It _was _awfully comfortable, just gliding along... _No! _he told himself, giving himself a mental slap in the face. _I've got to stay awake! This is extremely important!_

"What is?" Tiana couldn't help but ask. "I don't think this is really the final reality. I don't see any rings or Voidables anywhere. Maybe the portal malfunctioned or something."

"That's not possible." Reala nudged Tiana into a dive again, once they had slipped out of the crack. "This is it. I know it is. I just...don't remember..." Reala's thoughts halted right there, and Tiana found her probing consciousness again smashing against one of his mental walls. Not _now_.

"What?!" Tiana demanded. "What don't you remember?!"

But Reala wouldn't answer her. He couldn't answer her. He took a moment to gather together his energy...and burst into a furious drill dash, yanking Tiana along with him. She had no choice but to follow him--if she'd even tried to protest, she would've instantly torn away.

_He knows something_, she realized, as she reluctantly pushed her own efforts into the flight. _He won't tell me what it is. But...we're going somewhere. He knows where he's going._

The world of Twin Seeds zoomed past her in watercolor blobs. They were going so fast that she was afraid of accidentally crashing into something. And then, suddenly, a horrific screech sliced through the cool, rushing air, very close to them.

Immediately, both Reala and Tiana slammed on the brakes, body reeling limply towards the ground. "What was _that_?!" Tiana cried. But she didn't have long to wait to find out.

Her body, or rather, Reala's body, hovered back up, a foot above the hard, black pavement. It was difficult to see clearly in the darkness, but the window lights from above cast a pale illumination over the scene. In front of her was thin alleyway--the back entrance to a club. A woman in a short red dress was pinned against the cold stone wall, a man in dark clothing roughly holding her there, slamming his hand over her mouth.

_Oh my God..._ Tiana's heart went cold. _He's going to rob her. Or mug her. Or...something worse..._ These sorts of things happened all the time on television--in crime dramas, or movies, or on news reports. But now it was happening. Here. Now. It was really happening.

Desperately, Tiana yanked on Reala's body, but he didn't let her move an inch. "C'mon!" she snapped at him, pushing harder. "We're invisible, aren't we?! They can't see us! We need to do something!"

No response.

A flustered panic seared into Tiana's heart, as she heard the man beginning to whisper, harshly and threateningly. And she couldn't move an inch.

At last, Reala's voice came out...chillingly cold and final. "What are we supposed to do." It wasn't a question, but a statement.

"I don't know--knock him out or something!!" Tiana screamed back. "Beat him up! We can drill dash him or something! You're the defender of the planet, aren't you?! This is your realm, isn't it?! _Do something_!!" The energy of Dualization was beginning to crackle around Tiana's limbs as she desperately struggled against Reala's wishes to stay still. She was really testing the barriers now--but still, he wouldn't relent.

Reala remained as still and solid as a statue, even as Tiana flung all her force into trying to make him move. "My purpose is to hold back the Voidables." His voice was hard and resolute--absolutely sure of itself now. "I defend this world from the powers of the Voidables. And that is all. If it's not a Voidable, it's a part of my own realm, and must not be disturbed. And _that_..." He turned towards the man and woman in the alleyway, giving Tiana a terribly detailed view of their struggle. "...That's not a Voidable."

"_Yeeeaaaugh_!!" Tiana screamed, a sharp pain stabbing into her body as she tore out of the barrier, toppling out of the sky, to the ground. She couldn't even feel the impact. She was too full of panic, confusion, and pure, bare terror.

The man was whispering, harshly, amidst the woman's soft whimpers. A flash of silver caught Tiana's eye...as he pulled out a knife, pressing the piercing blade to her neck. Tiana's heart was frozen. Her entire body was frozen. _I can't do anything_, she realized. _He wouldn't let me. He'll kill me if I try to interfere. If he knows I saw. He'll kill me. I...don't want to die. But...but the lady... He's going to kill _her_... _Why_?! Why can't I do anything?!_

Reala swooped forward, landing at her side. He remembered something now. About the final reality. He knew what had to happen. If Tiana failed this trial, it was all over. Somehow, he just knew. It was crucial. The most important part of this entire quest.

Tiana's body was beginning to tremble. She was still seated on the ground, legs folded underneath her, her palms pressed to the concrete. Her black sweatshirt camoflaged her with her surroundings. She tried to move...but she couldn't. She needed to get out of here. Run far away. Tell someone else what she had seen. Alert the police. Give them a description. But she couldn't.

Reala stood next to her, keeping her in place. As if he needed her to stay here.

It was so silent, their hushed voices projected through the tiny, hollow space around them. "I'll have to do it," the man's crazed, forked voice hissed. "If you don't come easily, I'll have to do it."

"P-Please..." the woman whispered. "I'm married. Two kids. It won't be very good. I won't tell anyone, if you just let me go. I promise."

"Husband, huh?" The man pressed the knife in a little deeper, bringing his dirty face closer to hers. "He know what a whore you are?"

The woman's face was ghastly white, her moist eyes rolling down towards the knife at her neck. "Please..."

"I'll show you what a whore you is." And then, with his other hand, the man reached down...unzipping his pants.

_OhmyGod!!_ Tiana tore herself away, burying her face in her hands. "I-I can't watch!!"

"You _have _to!!" Reala finally sprang into action, wrestling her hands away and jerking her head around, back towards the horrific scene.

"N-No!" Tiana squeaked, even as her eyes widened with transfixed horror. "I-I can't! I'm just sixteen!! I can't--"

And she did. She saw everything.

Tiana collapsed to the pavement, sobbing, a sick, disgusting bile building at the back of her throat. She coughed, clutching her head in to her chest, blocking out everything else. She couldn't even think. It was just too horrible.

It was over. The man and woman were gone. And the space between the two narrow walls was beginning to warp and blend into something new. A new image was forming. The first hurdle had been passed. But there were still many more to come.

Reala knelt next to the shaking teenage girl, placing a hand over her shoulder. "These are your trials," he explained. "The first one is over. It's time for the next now. This is what the final reality is. I told you in the beginning, didn't I? You'd have to see and hear a few things that you may not like?"

But Tiana couldn't hear any of it. She was so limp with the shock and terror. Pointed fingertips lifted her chin again, towards the projected image between the walls of the alley.

Tears began to roll down Tiana's cheeks, as she watched soldiers with machine guns blasting the innocent civilians of a small, poor farm. Their bodies ricocheted backwards, blood spurting out of their limbs, pooling on the dusty ground, flowing through the field of wilted crops.

"I-I can't!!" Tiana finally screamed out, squeezing her eyes closed, so tightly her eyes throbbed. "I can't _watch _this!! I don't want to see this!! _Don't make me watch this_!! _I can't_..._I won't_..._I won't just watch this_!! _Stop it_!! _Just stop it_!! _Stop this_!! _Please stop it_!!"

Reala snapped. She was going to do it. She was going to fail. She _couldn't_ fail, no matter what! Everything would end! Everything would be destroyed! Everything was about to be obliterated, right before his eyes!

His slim body thrust forward, tearing Tiana's head up towards the image by her hair, his face wild, dark, and furious. "You _will _watch!! You _will_ do it!! _This _is what you signed up for!! _You said you could handle it_!!"

A weak cry burst out of Tiana's lips as her neck snapped upwards, her face violently thrust forward. The horrifying sounds of gunshots and people's dying shrieks echoed in her ears, along with Reala's raging voice. She clenched her eyes closed, just as a flicker of the images' light reached her eyes. She fought desperately against the awful pain in panic, terror, and utter desperation. "N-No!! I don't want to--I can't--I _won't_--I--"

Tiana screamed, as a searing, hot pain tore across her forehead. Reala squeezed her head with as much force as his hand would allow, digging his fingernails into her flesh, manually dragging her eyelids open, exposing their red insides. Tiana shrieked again, as the nightmarish images again burst into being in front of her. She tugged, fiercely back, until she felt as if her eyelids might completely tear off. She tried to move her arms, but Reala had both those and her legs pinned down with his feet. And she watched.

She saw masses of children, dying of disease, she saw dead bodies being piled in a ditch, she saw people being blown apart by bombs, she saw some things that would be too horrifically gruesome to even mention. She saw so much suffering, death, and destruction that she felt numb and cold inside. She couldn't think. She couldn't function at all. She had become a hard shell, as if someone had just sucked her life away. It just went on...and on...

Five minutes later, at last, the visions ran out. The colors swirled back out of existence between the alley's cold brick walls. It vanished from existence in a small blink, just like the portal that had brought them to this accursed place.

At last, Reala let up on her. Her body flopped onto the ground as soon as he released her head. He stepped off of her hands and legs, his body slowly unwinding. Everything was so freakishly silent. Tiana's body was still splayed over the ground, her wild, ragged hair sticking out in all directions.

Reala held his breath. It was over now. The visions were over. It was all over. But not yet. He had to wait now. Wait...and see what Tiana would do.

Tiana's limbs began to tremble, weakly. She couldn't believe she'd just sat through all of that. That this had all just happened. Everything had been fine before. What had happened? To the world...to herself? How...? Why...? What...? A terrible surge in her stomach almost made her throw up. She wanted to throw up. She felt like she was going to puke her guts out, cry her eyes dry, and then just pass out. Why did all of this have to happen?

At last, she lifted her head. The visions were gone now. At last, it was over. She lifted herself to her knees, pressing her hands against her face. _Why...? Why...? _Then she looked up.

"RRRRRRAAAAAAAUGH!!"

Tiana lunged herself, with all of her might, at Reala, violently tackling him to the ground. She punched him, kicked him, scratched him, slapped him, stabbed him, bit him, tearing his jacket, slicing his skin, slamming his head against the ground, almost knocking him unconscious, all while shrieking crazily like a wild animal.

_It's HIM! HE'S why! HE did it! He's evil!! He's sadistic! He's insane! He's a monster!! A living nightmare!! The Devil!! I never should have trusted him!! I'll kill him! I'll _kill_ him for what he did to me! I'LL KILL HIM!!_

Reala took all of her blows, silent except for the occasional grunt. This was it. It was over now. It was through. She had failed.

The world faded to blackness around them. Tiana finally noticed that Reala had disappeared, and she was smacking the air. She sat back on her haunches, looking around, wondering where he had gone, so she could kill him.

But then, gently, something blossomed within her, calming her nerves. It was gone, she realized. The world was gone. Everything was gone. There was nothing in this small space with her. Just herself. Her spirit. Her ideas and thoughts. No Reala, no human beings, no death or suffering, no evil or hatred. It felt so comfortable here.

Tiana closed her eyes, letting the feelings wrap around her, comforting her...cushioning her. A few words began to flash in her mind. _Over...over. The day is over. The day...over... Day...over..._ But that didn't matter to her. In fact, she was glad of it. She smiled a little and repeated it over in her head. _Day Over, Day Over, Day Over... _She'd never have to go back. She'd never have to see any of that again. She'd never have to be in so much pain again. She could just stay here forever. And dream...

(-)

Reala felt his feet gently touch against something soft and fuzzy. He was a bit surprised that he could even stand. They had arrived. Back through the portal. Back at Tiana's house. In her parlor. He slowly opened his eyes.

The shorter figure of the familiar teenage girl stood in front of him, her hair strewn over her head like she had just been in a windstorm, her hooded sweatshirt baggy and crooked. Her eyes were still closed. Reala could see the red slits on her forehead where he had scratched her. Her face looked so peaceful and calm.

_Maybe..._ Reala dimly thought. _Maybe..._ Softly, he extended his hands towards her...comforting and forgiving. Maybe it all wasn't lost yet. _Please..._ He wished, from the deepest reaches of his soul. _Tiana...don't do this..._

Then her eyelids fluttered open. Immediately, her calm demeanor was gone. She looked up...into Reala's face and at the long-nailed hands extended towards her.

"_Get away from me_!!" She wildly swiped his hands away and bolted down the corridor to her room, slamming the door furiously behind her.

Reala stared after her. His face furrowed into a terrible, grave frown. It was over. He never should have gotten his hopes up. He'd thought Tiana might be different. He couldn't have an Explorer anymore. This always happened. Tiana was doomed. And so was he.

Reala finally turned away from the sight of the closed door down the hallway...and collapsed onto the couch. One second later, he was fast asleep.

(-)

"Tia-_na_?!" Ms. Weaver stood, rapping against her door that morning, confusion and annoyance lacing her voice. "Wake up, Tiana! You need to go to school! C'mon! I even set out your favorite waffles! It's time to get up!"

No response. Not even a groan or a plea of "two more minutes!"

_Argh, she's probably still asleep_. "_Tiana_!" Ms. Weaver called, harshly, pounding her fist further against the cream-painted wood. "You've got to get up! I'm not letting you miss the bus! You've got twenty minutes to get dressed and get yourself ready! I'm going to be late for work if I have to stand around here, waiting for you! Get moving, lazybones!"

At least this time, there was a noise. A strange noise, which sounded like some kind of groan...but it was too low and muffled by the door to hear clearly.

_This is impossible! She's _never_ been this defiant with me! I know she's been skipping school, but only when I'm not around to supervise. Oh, God. I have to make sure she goes. But if I'm late...if I'm late, I'll get cited again. I can't afford it. I can't afford to risk it. _Why _does this always happen to me?! _

Ms. Weaver's chest constricted, from all the anxiety building within her. "_Tiana_!" she cried again, her voice slicing through the door's thin frame. "If you're trying to skip school again, I _won't_ allow it! I'll sell all of your video games and comic books! If you don't answer me in two second, I'm coming in!"

One. Two. Nothing.

"Alright, I'm coming in there!" Ms. Weaver seized the handle with determination, yanking it outwards. Her arm tugged, painfully, but the door didn't budge. She had the emergency lock on. She gasped in exasperation. "Tiana, how dare you--"

"G-Go away."

Ms. Weaver froze. Her daughter's voice sounded so different to her. It was cold, lifeless, and raspy. For a moment, she was stunned. "T...Tiana. Now isn't the time to be throwing a hissy fit. I'm sure you'll feel better once you're up and you've had some breakfast. So come on. We can talk about it once I get home from work."

"Go away." The strange, disembodied voice spoke up again. "Just leave me alone. I hate school. I hate life. I hate you. Go away."

_I hate you..._ Ms. Weaver's heart clutched at those words. _No. No, she's just having one of those moody teenager days. She'll get over it in a while. I can't worry about it. I need to leave right now! _

But even as she bustled through the parlor, pausing to grab her lunch tote off the coffee table, the apprehension in her chest wouldn't go away. Tiana's voice hadn't sounded like one of her normal moody moments. In fact, she was disturbed to realize that that voice belonged to her own daughter. It wasn't right. Something was wrong with her. The world was falling apart. And Ms. Weaver's life was quickly spiraling out of control.

(-)

NiGHTS had spent all night crying. It was probably the first time in his life that he'd wasted the entire night without doing anything fun. Without being happy at all. Well, except the other time, of course.

Tiana had bolted herself into her bedroom, completely cutting off any kind of contact with the rest of the world. And the worst thing was, he could hear her...occasionally sobbing, retching, moaning...even screaming. And he couldn't do anything about it. He'd already tried flying around by the window, but she had that firmly locked in place as well, a dark curtain drawn over it. This was terrible. Completely awful. Worse than he had dared to imagine.

And then there had been Reala, lying deeply unconscious over the couch...gray bruises and small bloodless wounds covering his body, his jacket torn in several places. By four o' clock that afternoon, he'd finally woken up...but he refused to say anything, or even move himself from the couch. It was just as he had feared. Tiana had attacked him...turned against him...all by herself.

NiGHTS couldn't take it anymore. He had to do something. No one else was doing anything about it...and nothing would ever be resolved. And so, once five-thirty arrived, he decided that he couldn't let it go on any longer.

NiGHTS turned his dried, hardened face towards the cream-colored barrier just down the hall...and softly floated up in front of it. It was locked, he knew. But he would figure out how to get around it. He would use magic on the lock. He would try to squish himself through the crack at the bottom of the door. He would bash the door down with a powerful drill dash. Anything. He couldn't watch this innocent girl in such agony anymore. Gravely, he began to reach out one hand towards the doorknob.

"_Don't touch it_!"

NiGHTS swerved backwards in shock as something large and red forcefully streaked up in front of the door, cutting him off. "Reala?"

Only one minute ago, he'd been lying prone against the couch, in a trance. He pressed his hands firmly backwards over the door, protecting it, his teeth clenched together, furiously.

"I-I have to do something," NiGHTS weakly attempted to defend himself. He hadn't seen his brother looking so enraged since their battle over the dream-skies of Bellbridge. "I need to help her! She hasn't come out of there all day! Not even to eat or anything! She's probably getting terribly sick! I have to--"

"_No_!" Reala sharply protested, his mouth gnashing with every word. "If you go in there now, _everything_ that we worked so hard for will be _lost_! _Is that what you want_?!"

A cold dread stabbed into NiGHTS's heart at those words. _Everything will be lost. History will only repeat itself again. She'll...and he'll be... But...but... Is this really what's best for Tiana?_

Reala noticed his brother's pained, distressed expression, but didn't move an inch from his position. Everything depended on this.

"But...but something has to be done," NiGHTS softly breathed out. "If I can't do it, you have to do it yourself."

"I can't do that." Reala's voice was calmer now, but still cold as ice. "She hates me. She'll fly into a rage just at the sight of me. There's no way she'll ever listen to me now."

NiGHTS's hand clenched into a fist. He couldn't stand listening to him talk like this. "Well...well, you have to try!" he finally burst out. "You can't just give up! You promised me, didn't you?! _You have to try_!"

And with that, NiGHTS finally turned and zoomed off through the house, hiding the tears that were forming below his eyes.

Reala stared after him in stunned silence...and finally relaxed his hold on the door. He panted heavily, softly lowering himself to the floor and clutching his chest. His damaged body trembled, ever-so-slightly. Then, he looked down at one of his pale, menacing claw-hands...and gently curled it into a fist.

(-)

Tiana gently curled her hands into fists. She tucked her head in between them, trying to block it out. Everywhere she looked, she could see it. She looked at her video games and saw the people being shot. She looked at the paint on her ceiling and saw slaves wasting away as they were forced to repaint someone's mansion. She looked at her romance comics and saw the woman being raped. It was no use. Everything was horrendous. Everything was terrifying.

_The world is a hellish place...a waking nightmare...full of hatred, destruction, and evil people... I hate this world. I hate everything about it. I hate reality. I _hate_ reality!!_

Reality...Reala. The floating, red-and-white creature appeared in her mind...extending his hands to her. Persistently arguing with her. Sleeping peacefully beside her window. His crystal glowing as he held her back after spinning her around. His weird, funny, joyous laughter. _That was all a lie. Everything was all a lie. He didn't tell me. He was trying to hide it. He used me. He did that to me. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him!!_

Tiana looked up...her eyes resting on the cold, empty metal cot in front of her window, the blanket still a little rumpled. And immediately, she sprang from her bed, grasping the cot from underneath and violently flipping it over. It crashed against the wall, its metal legs sticking out, the pillow and blanket plopping off against the windowpane. But that wasn't enough. Tiana grabbed the leg and smashed it into the wall...again and again and again...until a huge dent appeared in its side. She continued violently attacking it, as if it was Reala himself. And she wished it was.

At last, she collapsed onto her bed, the remainder of her energy spent, curling into a ball again. Her body wracked with sobs, though no tears came out. She had already used them all up. She felt weak, helpless, and alone in a big, ugly, gruesome world.

_How could I ever have trusted him...even for a little bit? How could I ever have thought...we might be able to be friends? _

_"You would be entering into a contract," _Reala's voice echoed in her mind. _"You would be bound to complete your development with me... You'd have to see and hear a few things that you might not like...and you won't be able to retract your offer later..." _

_"It doesn't matter!" _her own voice replied. _"...I don't care what happens in the process! I'm sure I can handle it." _

_How could I have been so ignorant? _

_You have been rejected._ A new voice began, inside her head. Another part of her mind. _Your soul has been rejected. The world does not care about you. No one cares about you. You are not good enough. You are not good enough to be cared about. It is useless...useless...useless.._

_USELESS. _

Tiana gasped, shooting up on her bed and clutching her arms to her chest. For a moment, she felt outside of herself...as if she was someone else. That last voice...it had been much louder, deeper, and eerily warped. She'd never heard a voice like that in her life, though it sounded so startlingly familiar to her. _Useless..._

That confirmed it. Tiana sank back down onto the bed, burying herself in her covers again, where she hoped she could stay forever. _This is all useless..._ And so, she fell asleep.

(-)

It was useless. Ms. Weaver had tried everything short of hammering the door down...but Tiana just wouldn't come out...or let anyone come in. She'd tried all last night...trying to comfort her, tempting her with food, threatening her, pleading with her, trying to bargain with her. It all amounted to nothing. Ms. Weaver was worrying too much to even concentrate on her calculations, and she was late on at least two bill payments. They were about to lose their electric service, and were running out of food, without any money left over for groceries. How had it gone so fast? There were only two of them.

There hadn't been any luck next morning, either. Tiana wouldn't even budge. She had to get her out of there--call an ambulance or something. She was probably sick from starvation, dehydration, and all sorts of other things. But they had no insurance to cover the medical bills, and if she paid up-front, they wouldn't have enough for anything else. They could get thrown out of this apartment, on the streets!

When Ms. Weaver came home again the next day to see the door still firmly closed, she fell into a state of utter despair. Her aching body fell into the recliner chair, letting her lunch tote drop from her hand.

_How did this happen? _She distressed. _I'm all by myself, working all day for minimum wage...I can't make the bills...I'm over my head in debt...no one will hire me...I can't even support my daughter...can't even get her some help when she's sick...can't even give her a normal childhood...or protect her from this city's crime... I can't do anything! _

Tears slowly flowing down her cheeks, Ms. Weaver dragged herself into the kitchen. _I just wish it would all go away... All this burden...this responsibility. I can't do it. I can't handle it. Just make it go away..._

She reached into an overhead cabinet...and with shaking hands, pulled out a thin-stemmed glass and a large bottle with a long neck. _I can't take all of this anymore. Just...make the world disappear. I'm not good enough. I can't do it. I'm so tired of trying. _

She poured the bottle's clear, strong-smelling liquid into the glass, and lumbered back into the parlor with it, leaving the bottle out in the open, on the center of the table. Again, she sank down into the recliner, wearily holding the glass up, her tearstained eyes reflected in its round, clear surface.

_Look at me. I don't even recognize myself. I'm so tired...so tired... I'm useless. No matter how hard I try, it never gets any better. My entire life was a waste! _

Ms. Weaver threw her head back against the pillow of the recliner, gulping down the alcohol, feeling its soothing burn traveling down her throat. When she pulled away at last, only a tiny sip was left. Her body slumped forward...and a large, red foot pressed into the carpet fibers, right in front of her.

_I...give up..._ she lamented. _I'm just an awful, stupid, good-for-nothing Mom. No wonder Daniel left me...no wonder he didn't care about me. No wonder...my own daughter hates me! _

But before Ms. Weaver could rise to drown her sorrows again, she looked up...and gave a ragged gasp, as she watched the glass float up out of her hand.

Her hazel eyes bulged all the way open, their white sides showing. They remained absolutely fixed on the levitating glass in front of her, trying to record every second of this unbelievable phenomenon. She'd just had one glass--she couldn't be drunk already!

She felt her heart begin to pound at her ribcage. _It's a ghost. Oh my God, it's a ghost. What is it going to do to me...?_

Reala glared down into her stricken form, crumpled back against the recliner, her body as white and shriveled as a worm seeing the sunlight for the first time. _Pah. Humans,_ he scoffed. _Always so oblivious to the world around them. _

His skeletal hand clenched tighter around the glass's thin stem. "You know," he spoke, though Ms. Weaver couldn't hear a word. "I don't like it when you try to get away from me."

Her wrinkled face gaped in terror as he raised the glass even higher...preparing. His voice was cold and merciless. "In the end, it'll only make me angrier." And with that, he smashed the glass forcefully down, into the carpet, shattering it into a hundred pieces.

A scream burst from Ms. Weaver's open mouth, her body jolting back, pressing into the recliner so tightly that it almost tipped over.

And then...nothing. Ms. Weaver's bulging eyes moved down to take in the sight of the pieces of glass strewn over the floor, and the small spot of liquid slowly seeping into the rug.

Reala's eyes narrowed. "This is one thing your daughter definitely does not need right now."

_Oh...oh my goodness..._ Ms. Weaver's face went entirely chalk-white, still fixated on the broken glass. _What...what am I doing? _Then her eyes rolled back...and her body fell back, limply, over the arms of the chair. Unconscious.

(-)

The door made no sound as it softly swung open. The room was warm, like the insides of an egg...incubating. The air was dead and lifeless, though some strange, unrecognizable smell lingered densely on it. The catacombs...the inner sanctum of an ancient tomb.

His red-booted feet softly glided above the surface of the aqua carpet, a few stray sparkles dusting behind. All was silent...still and sacred. The small, dark figure came gradually closer and closer. Her bristly brown hair hung over her black-clothed back, to her waist. She couldn't even bring herself to change her own clothes. She was sobbing, softly, her tears renewed...her back hunched over, her head tucked down. Her energy was beginning to fail. She didn't have the strength to come check the lock...to see that it had been knocked open. This was the only chance. He knew what he needed to do.

Softly, Reala settled his lithe body down, into the warm, puffy covers behind her. Tiana didn't feel a thing. The comforting blankets around him perfectly cushioned his landing. Her body wracked with sobs--dry, croaking noises, more like coughs than anything else. It was the first time he'd actually gotten a look at the deterioration that came before the destruction.

_Make her see...what you want her to understand. _He couldn't say it out loud. But he could help her to realize. He would have to give her a nudge.

Reala began to raise his right arm...and paused. Tiana shuddered. _No. The contact is necessary. This is very different. Entirely different. _And with that thought, he finally extended his hand...and fitted it over Tiana's head...gently and reassuringly.

A sharp gasp shot out of her. Her head instantly snapped up, her eyes wide and rimmed with tears. A brand-new image had suddenly burst forth from the back of her mind...flooding her consciousness, filling up her every sense and emotion. A memory.

A soft, warm blanket tucked around her...a gentle, loving face looking down on her. It was her mother, from nearly ten years ago...standing by her bed, telling her a story to comfort her while she had a cold. It was so comfortable here. She could feel that she was loved, and wanted here...that the world was full of warmth and kindness. _I told her...I hated her..._

Then, there she was again, a little girl in a brown ponytail, running through the park. Jumping and laughing, swinging and sliding, balancing on the wooden borders, making lumpy sculptures in the sand. Her father smiled back at her from the green park bench. A surge of happiness flowed through her. He was proud of her. Proud of her creation. Proud of her existence. And she felt...as if she had some purpose in the world. Playing in the park was so much fun. She wanted to play there forever.

And then, eight years old now, she was having a party with her friends. She picked up some dolls and acted out a funny scene with them. The other two girls laughed. Soon, they were all creating funny stories with the dolls, walking them all over the furniture, posing them on the mantelpiece, and laughing until their sides ached. She felt accepted, worthy of friendship, and purely joyful. They would have plenty of fun times together. The world was full of laughter and happiness.

Then, suddenly, the air was rushing around her. A jolt of exhilaration went through her heart as her body easily raced through the sky, watching the miniature houses glitter by below her. The living, dancing sea, flickering with energy and life. The miraculous existence of animals in the frozen tundra. The bright, smooth, sparkling slopes of ice.

Memories...so vivid and real...there was no doubt in her mind that they were all true. Family...friends...precious people, and precious places. Precious experiences. Joy. Laughter. Kindness. Wonder. Beauty. Warmth. Love.

The tiny teardrops at the corners of Tiana's widened eyes finally spilled over, cascading down her upturned cheeks. _How... How did I forget...all of that? I've been...shutting it out. Shutting everything out. Even...even..._

Then a voice came from somewhere inside her. She could never be sure whose it was, or how it had gotten there. _...Is it worth it?_

Those terrible images returned again...of destruction, death, and horror...but now...these new images...the memories of her life...overpowered them. They came back in full force, blocking out the terrors. They were there...they always would be there. But so would everything else.

_...Yes._

Softly, gradually, the images faded away, curling out of her consciousness and drifting off into the distance. Her ragged head flopped down again, the tears still dripping down her chin. Yet, inside, she felt settled...renewed...and saddened by her own behavior.

The silence was different this time. Soft, gentle, and hopeful. All was quiet for a long time afterwards. Tiana remained perfectly still on the center of her bed, still facing the wall, as these forgotten feelings and memories coursed through her heart. She began to feel something gradually slipping away from her.

"Wait."

Reala froze in the doorway, placing one hand gently over the doorcasing.

"...Thank you."

His head turned, glancing back into his Explorer's tangled hair. "No need to thank me," he spoke, his voice almost a whisper. "I didn't do anything."

Then he disappeared into the dim light of the apartment, leaving Tiana to her stunned and wondrous silence.

(-)

"...Mom?"

The sound was fuzzy and unclear at first. It took a while for the world to gradually fade back into existence. Ms. Weaver carefully lifted her head, opening bleary eyes. At last, they settled on the familiar figure standing next to her. The image of her daughter at last solidified--wearing a green shirt with an aqua-blue skirt. Her hair was still unkempt, and her face looked gray, her eyes swollen and red. But something about that face looked so much more...calm.

"Mom?" she asked again, and her voice was soft, mellow, and a little sad.

_Am I dreaming? _Ms. Weaver wondered. Everything was so unreal. That levitating glass...and now Tiana, miraculously out of her room, with no apparent prompting. Her eyes automatically moved down to the rug. The pieces of the broken glass were gone, swept away by some unseen force...but the little dark stain of the alcohol still remained. It was real.

"I'm sorry..." Tiana's gentle voice continued. "I really haven't been feeling well lately. But...I'm better now." She clutched her hands in front of her, tensely. "I...didn't mean to make you worry, and...and I didn't really mean it...when I said I hated you..."

"..." At last, Ms. Weaver turned her head back, looking into the face of her precious daughter, her vision becoming clouded with tears. "...Oh, Tiana!" she burst forward, pressing her into the tightest, closest hug since the shooting incident. The tears spilled over onto her cheeks, getting raked into Tiana's bristly, brown hair. "Tiana... Oh, Tiana... I should be the one apologizing to you. I can't provide you with the life you deserve. You deserve so much more than this. And then for me to forget about you and drown in my own self-pity...it's unforgiveable."

Tiana wasn't sure what she meant by all this, but at least it sounded good. "I remembered a lot of things today," she spoke again.

Ms. Weaver pulled Tiana up onto her lap in the recliner, though it was quite awkward and uncomfortable, considering her age and size. "Me too," her teary voice whispered, as she wrapped her up in her arms. "I remembered a lot too."

Her words carried into the kitchen, where, just behind the doorway, a certain tall, thin figure stood leaning against the wall, one booted foot resting against it. He turned his horned head towards the parlor at the sound...and allowed a tiny smile to play across his light gray lips.

"M-Mom..." Immediately, Tiana was embarrassed to be so embraced by her mother...but it felt a bit comfortable and familiar. Something she had once enjoyed, from long ago. And for the moment, it didn't matter how old she was. "...I love you, Mom." It was the first time she'd said it in over two years.

"I love you too, honey." Ms. Weaver finally pulled back just a little bit and mopped up her tears on her jacket sleeve. "I'd be completely lost without you. I know I would. I honestly don't know what I'd do. And I can't believe I almost threw it all away..."

Softly, she drew in a deep breath, preparing for the things she knew she needed to do now. She couldn't continue to carry this burden all by herself. It was going to destroy her. She was going to break underneath the strain. "Tiana..." she gently began. "I'm going through too much right now. If we keep going the way we are, we could end up losing this apartment, and I can't let that happen. And I can't stand having to ask this of you, but...I need you to help, just a little bit."

Tiana's chest froze in panic. "...You need me to get a job?"

"No, no," Ms. Weaver immediately comforted her. "I'm not going to make you work while you're still in school. But I do need you to do beter in school, to make the exchange worthwhile. I need you not to ask for any new books, comics, video games, or anything of that sort. I need you to look through some of that stuff and let me sell some of it--just what you can do without. I'm doing the same with all of my possessions. I might have to shut off our television and internet--" Tiana gasped. "--services for a little while. It's just for now. We're going to have to make a few small sacrifices. But it'll get better, I promise it will."

Tiana bit her lip and tried not to protest about the internet. She could do it. She could survive without the internet. It would be hard, but it could be done. "...Okay," she finally relented. "I'll do it. I'll help."

And her mother pulled her down into an embrace once again. "Tiana..." she whispered, happily. "I'm so proud of you." She pulled back again. "Actually, I _have _noticed that it's a lot cleaner around here than it used to be." She smiled.

"U-Uh, no," Tiana was quick to tell her. "I didn't clean anything. That was--"

"Reala?" Ms. Weaver finished, a strange smile sparkling across her face.

Tiana sighed. "I know you don't believe me..."

"Yes." Ms. Weaver's voice was firm and resolute. "Yes, I do."

Tiana stared back at her in shock.

"While I may not be sure than this creature of yours exists, I know that there _are_ supernatural forces in this world...and that there is one at work here."

Tiana's eyes widened with awe. _Did he...do something...? _

But then, the two of them only melted again into silent hugs. Several moments passed without a word.

"...I'm sorry," Tiana finally spoke again. "I...I forgot a lot of things. Not only just now...but ever since Dad left us. I forgot how close we used to be..."

Ms. Weaver stiffened in her arms at those words.

"What's the matter?"

She let go at last, letting her daughter stand up again by her side. The atmosphere was suddenly so cold. "Tiana..." Ms. Weaver sighed. "I'm sorry. There's something I've never told you, and you need to know about it. About your father... It's time I told you why he really left..."

And as the small figure of Tiana began to settle down again in the distance, to hear the story, he softly turned his head away. Everything was going to be fine now. It had been done...and he could be sure that everything would proceed just as it was supposed to. So at last, he pulled away from the wall...and flew, swiftly and silently, out through the kitchen window.

(-)

"Hrrmmmm..." NiGHTS held the two ends of the bandage up around the back of Tiana's head. They weren't sticky. And even if they were, she probably wouldn't want it to ruin her hair. "Hmmm..." And then, swiftly, he looped them around into a tight knot. "You're a ninja! Hah! Yah! Hiiiii-yah!"

For a moment, Tiana had to wonder if letting NiGHTS tend to her wounds really was a good idea.

"Hey," Reala spoke up from the other side of the sofa, interrupting his brother's energetic karate chops. "Are you going to get that solution stuff or not?"

"Oh!" NiGHTS froze with one leg in the air. "That's right! It should be ready by now! I'll go get it right away!" He zoomed off into the kitchen, towards the bathroom.

Reala just sighed and picked at another small rip on the end of his jacket. With a little pinching and smoothing, he molded the fabric in, repairing the hole, just as if the jacket was made of clay. Unfortunately, he couldn't do the same with his skin.

And now, they were left alone with each other...for the first time since the memory jog.

Tiana pressed on the bandage around her forehead, to make sure it was secure, and gently turned her head. It was the first time she'd really gotten a look at Reala since the final reality disaster. Two gray splotches crawled up the sides of his face, and one of his sensors was a little bent out of shape. He rolled up one of his sleeves, and she could see a few little tears in its pale blue material. _Wow..._I _did all of that? _

"I...I'm sorry," she softly spoke up, at last.

Reala frowned and flapped his sleeve back over his arm. "There's no need for that."

Tiana hung her head. _And...he didn't even try to fight back. He probably could've hurt me, if he'd fought back. He knew...he deserved it. _She wasn't exactly sure how she felt about this either. She would never be able to fully trust him, she was sure of that now, but at least...he didn't hold it against her. He understood how it had upset her and that she had a right to be so angry and upset. A tiny ache began in the center of her chest, for no apparent reason. The whole thing was almost...sad.

"Here we go!" NiGHTS then flew back into the room, holding up a plastic bottle of clear chemicals. "All done!"

Reala rolled up his sleeves, holding his arms out towards him. NiGHTS wet a cotton ball with the chemicals and gently began to swab at the little wound rips. "_Guh_!" Reala started back as soon as it touched him. "That stings!"

"Well of course it stings--it's medicine!" NiGHTS replied. "It'll help you heal faster. Now, you've got to stay still..." Reala just cringed as NiGHTS continued dabbing him with the medicine, all over his arms, and then on his legs.

"Jeez," NiGHTS remarked. "What did you two _do _to each other?"

"He nearly tore my eyelids off," Tiana spoke up. "And so I beat him up."

"A fair exchange," Reala assented. He rolled his sleeves and pants legs back down once they were done.

"But...I really don't know what to do about this..." NiGHTS worried, floating around behind him and lifting up his droopy sensor. "Is it broken or something? Maybe I should wrap it up..." He grabbed its end and began to stretch it out, the elastic skin easily forming out beyond its normal length.

"Well..." Reala began to consider. "It doesn't hurt at all..."

_Smack._

"Ow!"

NiGHTS had suddenly let go, letting it spring back and smack into his head...and it had now perfectly re-formed itself, all solid and perky again. "And there you go!" NiGHTS grinned. "Problem solved!"

Reala glared at him and rubbed it, sorely. "Have I ever told you how much I hate you?"

"_All _the time."

Tiana couldn't help giggling, just a little. Everything was back to normal again. The two of them bickering... She had thought she might never get to see it again. It felt so unusually wonderful right now. To just...be here, together with them. She didn't realize how much she was getting used to having them around...and how much she had missed them, just for the two days she'd shut herself in her room. Though they might not feel the same way about her, she thought of them almost like friends...or her own two siblings. And it had only been a little over a month.

"_Yaaaaaaaay_!" NiGHTS suddenly tackle-hugged her. "She's smiling, she's smiling!"

"Eheh..." Tiana embarrassingly chuckled, hiding her face in her hair. She hated when people made a big fuss over her.

"I'm so happy that I can talk to you again!" NiGHTS floated off, hanging in the air next to the couch. "Now I can make you feel better! We should celebrate or something!" He began to zip around in circles, his excitement building. "We can make cake, and play that party game, and oh, oh, oh! We can dance again! How about that?! That was really fun!"

"Uh...no, that's all right. I don't really feel like it."

NiGHTS halted, hanging limply in the air, completely flummoxed.

Tiana was actually pretty surprised herself. Just a few days ago, she would've jumped at the chance to play games all day with NiGHTS...but now, it just didn't spark the same excitement within her, somehow.

"O-Oh..." NiGHTS recovered at last, folding one leg up over his knee. "I understand. You're probably still recovering...and it might hurt, with your injury."

Tiana stole a glance past him at Reala, but the bandaged jester didn't say a word. He stared towards the kitchen, lost in thought. _Too bad_, she amusedly thought. _I wish he could see this--for once, I'm actually passing up video games! _

(-)

And then, that night, it came again. NiGHTS was out on the roof--he could relax a little more and fly further away from the house now that he knew everything was under control here. So for the moment, it was just Tiana and Reala.

Reala knelt on his dented cot, while Tiana tried to clean her room a little. He plucked the last, lingering note out of the air and gently opened his eyes. No Awakers had gathered this time, since he'd only played a short tune, and rather softly. Tiana wondered why he was playing the lyre at all. If it wasn't morning, then that meant... She stood up, staring at him with widened eyes and clutching a dirty sock in one hand.

"Yes," his gruff voice answered, reading the question off her face. "You get to try again."

A cold, ominous feeling shivered through her heart for a moment...but then, it faded away, replaced by a strange calm acceptance. She wasn't surprised or shocked...she wasn't afraid, though she might have been a little nervous. The sock dropped from her hand, forgotton. "Should we tell him?" She nodded towards the window.

"No," Reala decided, floating to her side. "He'll freak out about it and try to stop you from going...it'll only add to your anxiety. And that's the last thing you need."

Tiana gripped her purple butterfly shirt in silent agreement.

He turned towards her. "Are you ready?"

She set her face into a determined, solid expression, calling up her memories in the back of her mind. She would come prepared this time. And at last, she could truthfully answer. "Yes."

(-)

There they were again--stepping onto the warped sidewalk of Twin Seeds, through the portal in the doorway. Reala offered his hands up to her, and she willingly took them. _And to think...I once thought I might never get to Dualize again. _

It seemed ridiculous to her now--all her past troubles and concerns. They were frivolous next to the many other horrifying troubles she had seen. They didn't even matter to her now.

Her body swiftly soared through the streets, swerving and ducking between buildings, around wires and street signs, flagpoles and satellite dishes. She could see all of the garbage--rotten vegetables, chemicals, glass, and sharp objects, strangling the environment. She swooped past a woman smoking on a corner, sure to die in a year or two of lung cancer. She twirled past a homeless child, huddled under sheets of cardboard for warmth. She easily sailed past two men punching each other out in front of a corner drug store. She didn't even notice.

For a moment, Tiana felt numb inside...emotionless...cold and dead. She didn't feel anything for these people. Not even pity. She probably could, if she stopped long enough to get a close-up look at their situations...but she couldn't stop every time she saw something unpleasant. It was going to hold her back. She closed her eyes and brought up the happy memories of her life and her family. No matter how much suffering she witnessed here, she could be sure that there would always still be joy and love within the world. She just had to look for it.

A very strange feeling came over her then. Some kind of existential, spiritual experience. Like she finally understood...she was finally granted access into some deep, elusive secret. She was herself...but she was outside of herself at the same time. It faded away a few seconds later. And that's when she realized why she'd felt sad before.

This world was Reala's realm. He was a part of it. And so was all this evil, suffering, and hatred. He was forced to accept that fact...and live with it, every day. He knew about all of this...more than any other being on the planet. _And that's why he's different from NiGHTS_, Tiana thought. _Why he's cold, serious, and unsympathetic. He has to be..._

Speaking of Reala, where was he taking her, anyway? They had simply flown up through the city in random directions, without saying a word to each other. She'd have to break the barrier of silence now. "Um...what are we supposed to be doing?" she spoke to him, as a woman's scream rang through the dark street behind them. "Do I have to go through those visions again?"

"No," Reala answered, and just from his tone of voice, she could tell that he had one of those mysterious little smirks on his face. "You already passed."

"I passed?" _Well, yeah, I guess. I didn't let any of those things get to me. I...accepted it as a part of life. _"So...why aren't we transporting back right now, with a shiny new ideya?"

"Because we still have a few more things to see." Reala extended his arms and pulled them upwards, vertically, along the side of a building. The air rushing past Tiana's face felt very refreshing. They shot out above the congestion for a moment, hanging solemnly in the air above the entire city. Lights shone out from the many bubbled windows of Twin Seeds, glowing oddly like the underside of a giant dark alien saucer. It wasn't home...but it was still a marvelous, expansive city, stretching to the watery horizon. A deep welling of emotions began within Tiana's chest. There was something much larger at work here...something like destiny.

"NiGHTS once had two Dreamers who lived here," Reala spoke up. "One wanted to be a basketball star--the other a famous singer."

_Well, I guess that's why he's familiar with the place then..._

"And neither of those dreams came true."

Tiana's heart froze for a moment. _So...that's why he's telling me this? Just to dash whatever hopes I may have for the future? _

Reala nodded his head. "Indeed, may of you human being have hopes and dreams for what you want your life to be like, what sort of person you want to become, of how you want other people to think of you...but in reality, very few of you actually achieve what you aspire to. The chances are highly slim...no matter how passionate you are about it, no matter how hard you work towards it...you still may never succeed."

Tiana closed her eyes, within her soul. _So...is it useless to have dreams? To work so hard for nothing...? _

Reala angled his body forward, crouching back and preparing for takeoff. "So...let's go take a peek at what those former Dreamers are doing now, why don't we?"

Tiana felt her body rocket forward, the light and shadowed outlines of Twin Seeds flashing by beneath her. They flipped down into a steep dive, weaving through buildings and signposts, until they came at last to a small window in the side of a tall apartment building, much like Tiana's own house, except with that futuristic Twin Seeds flair.

Tiana frowned, just at the appearance of the place...because she could tell what was coming next. _One of the Dreamers lives here... _she guessed. _Their dreams unfulfilled, living in the same rotten, miserable situation that I am. _

Reala wouldn't answer. He only maneuvered them onto the windowsill, carefully lifting the pane so as not to attract any attention. Immediately, a soft, gentle, warm tune wafted out to meet them.

Tiana gaped into the small apartment, where a young woman in her mid-twenties stood with her back to them, wavy reddish hair hanging to the waist of her pink dress. She swayed back and forth to the tune, and while Tiana couldn't make out any of the song's words, it felt so comforting and sweet. The lady's voice was clear and smooth, a wonderfully melodic pitch which almost sent shivers down her spine. The room was sparsely furnished--it was obvious that she had little possessions. But she didn't seem depressed or frazzled like Tiana's mother. She was content...even serene.

Reala crouched lower into the open window, giving Tiana a better view. "Claris Sinclair," he indentified her. "Now McBates. She used to dye her hair pink. She dreamed of being a famous singer and singing onstage before an adoring audience."

And just then, Claris turned around towards the window, revealing the small bundle enfolded in her arms. A baby. Her head bent low over the tiny, round, bald head poking out of the sky blue blanket, crooning her gentle tune into its face. It smiled a little at its mother, a few squeaking laughs escaping its mouth, and she smiled back, her face glowing with maternal love and joy.

A flood of comfort and understanding flowed through Tiana's soul at the sight. Her mother used to sing to her too, though never in such a lovely, tuneful voice. _So...her dream didn't come true,_ Tiana realized. _But...she can still make use of her talents, and do the things she loves to do. It's not for nothing. _

"Can you think of any better audience?" That last voice had come from somewhere outside of her, and Tiana finally became aware of herself moving slowly away from the scene. She couldn't answer...she had no way of putting it into words. But she could feel it, settling deep inside of her.

At last, Reala turned away completely, spiraling into a drill dash against the inky, black, starless sky. The tiny model buildings again reeled past below Tiana's twirling body, as they crossed to the other side of the city. They glanced by the glowing Twin Seeds tower, its ironwork tip lit from within by several eerie spotlights. At last, they dove down again, gently gliding up beside a long red brick building.

Reala guided them over to one of the low, flat roofs, and cracked open a large panel window against the gray concrete, slipping his slender body inside and floating near the room's ceiling. The air was warm and stuffy, the dull thudding of balls and the squealing of sneakers echoing off the metal rafters.

It was a fairly large gymnasium, several small figures of children running back and forth across the shiny, polished floor, bouncing balls, and taking practice shots at a hoop which had been lowered from the ceiling.

"The other Dreamer," Reala explained, just as Tiana's suspicions were beginning to grow. "Was a boy named Elliot. He wanted to be a basketball star and play in the major leagues."

Tiana squinted down at the tiny wriggling forms below them. He couldn't be one of _them_--he would be a lot older than that by now. So why were they in this place? Sure, he had once been a boy just like this, practicing hard, with big dreams to look forward to. But where was he now...?

Suddenly, a group of the children stopped playing. They turned towards a door in the side, near the stacks of folded bleachers...and they all began to gather around it.

"Mr. Edwards!"

Tiana gaped. The children all formed a ring around a young man in a blue track suit, his dark brown hair short and spiky in the front.

"Mr. Edwards!" they jabbered excitedly. "Coach Edwards!" "You're here!" "We didn't think you'd come!" "Can you show us that passing trick again?" "I need help on my side shoot!" "The big game with Waterton is only a week away!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, there, slow up," the man laughed, tucking a basketball under his arm. "I'll get around to all of you--there's no need to rush. And there's no need to be nervous about the game either, because we're going to do our best. And as long as we did our best, then that's something to be proud of, right?"

"Right!" the group of children chorused, having heard this pep talk several times before.

Mr. Edwards smiled. "Okay, then! Let's get on with the training!" And they did.

Tiana and Reala hovered over the scene for a few more minutes, watching as the children continued practicing happily with their basketballs, the man walking among them and pausing to help out the ones who were struggling. _That's him_, Tiana realized, for sure. _That's got to be him_.

Reala nodded. "Elliot Edwards. He used to dye his hair blue. He once felt like giving up, when the other players were giving him a hard time. He teaches History here at Mount Chestnut Junior High...and also doubles as the basketball coach."

Tiana smiled. It was wonderful, she realized. Though their dreams didn't come true, they could still go on doing the things they loved to do...and make a difference in the world. Even if it was a small one...even if it only affected a small population of local children, or the life of one special child...their passions and talents were useful and necessary in this world. It wasn't for nothing at all.

Tiana closed her eyes. She felt...comfortable. Secure in the world. Like she would be able to find a place for herself here...though she had no idea how. But she knew that it would not reject her. It would not destroy her...unless she let it.

"You human beings think of reality as something evil," Reala's voice spoke up, making the lesson all too plain to her now. "You think of it as something dull and boring. A nuisance. Something to be avoided. Something to be fought against."

Warmth wrapped around Tiana's body, and the sounds and smells from the gymnasiumm faded away. She began to feel that familiar sensation of gentle descent. Of being surrounded by her own mind...her own soul...her own feelings. And now, Reala's soft, all-knowing voice was a part of it.

"You never understand...that your dreams and your reality can meld. They can live in harmony together. And when both of them are in equal measure...that is the best possible scenario. Without reality, you would have no world of your own. You would have no memories. And without your memories...you would never have dreams."

But Tiana didn't need him to spell it out for her. She was thinking the exact same thing. Her thoughts came out through Reala's voice, rumbling comfortably around her. "This is the final reality. This is my final speech. Now...please accept it."

And a deep warmth and understanding welled up from within Tiana's heart. She felt suddenly older...like she knew and understood a lot...more than any other girl her age, and more even than most adults. Some deep-rooted truth of the universe had taken hold inside of her...and she promised to keep it there, within her heart, for as long as she lived. She would never let herself forget.

At last, Tiana felt her feet push against something solid, yet squishy and familiar. She opened her eyes...and her own parlor emerged around her, the night still dark through the two windows around the couch. Reala stood in front of her, just like before, his face solemn and expressionless. And floating brightly above her raised hand...was a round, glowing green orb, crystal points shining out from within. It was her next ideya...in her own hands.

She took a moment to stare into it with awe. Its magical energy was so special and beautiful. She had it all to herself this time...and that just didn't feel right somehow.

Tiana gently cupped her other hand under the green ideya and raised it just a little higher. Softly, gradually, openly...she held it up, and extended her arms...holding it out to Reala.

He didn't take it from her...but cupped one hand over it, just to feel its energy and be sure of its presence. "The Green Ideya of Growth," he announced, his low voice soft and mysterious. "Also known as Wisdom." Then he pulled his hand back again, curling it in front of his body...and waited.

Tiana knew what she needed to do now. It wouldn't be complete at last, until it was inside of her. She gazed down into the wondrous, glowing green orb and brought it closer. Closer and closer...until it merged into her very body.

For a moment, the entire world was bathed in a green glow, and she closed her eyes to concentrate and let this new essence enter into her soul. It was a part of her now--this intimate knowledge...of the nature of the world she lived in. Of the suffering, evil, and disgusting atrocities...of the joy, love, and breathtaking wonders...of the truths of reality...both harsh and comforting, good and bad, destructively crushing and hopefully glimmering. She understood...how everyone wrongly viewed the world, as something evil and oppresive. She had been that way herself, more than anyone. Living in her own fantasies, her own escapes. She wouldn't give them up completely...but venture outside once in a while...get started on her own dreams, whatever they were. Decide what she could do in this life. The world was open and full of opportunities...possibilities...and she now looked forward to them.

Tiana gently opened her eyes again to a world much different from the one she'd left behind. And the first thing she laid eyes on was her partner. Reala.

He hovered before her, peacefully, one arm still folded to his chest. And he smiled.

Tiana's heart filled with warmth at the wonderful sight...the sight she had only wished she might get to see someday...that she would someday be worthy of. Reala smiling, fully and openly...that gentle, glowing smile of true, pure happiness...meant exclusively for her. She had earned it. She had earned his trust, his friendship, a small peek into the true feelings hidden deep within his soul. It made Tiana feel so special, so priviledged, so glad that she was here, that she had chosen to take this chance, to go on this strange quest. The quest of her life...of her memories.

She would forever hold this moment within her heart, and treasure it as one of her most precious and personal experiences. She gave her truest and most joyous smile back, her brown eyes sparkling with inner warmth.

And then Reala's spindly body crumpled to the carpet with a thud.


	9. The Forbidden Nightopia

WARNING: EXTREMELY LONG CHAPTER ALERT. DO NOT START READING IF YOU HAVE AN IMPORTANT DATE! It was bound to happen again...

And now here we have the mandatory "let's all feel bad for the main character" chapter. There's always one in every single fanfiction I write.

Meh...this chapter seems really random and fragmented, but that's probably because of all the time-skips. Almost a whole month elapses during this one chapter...and I tried to organize the occurances the best I could. I'm still not entirely satisfied with it, but oh well. I never will be!

I've really tried to avoid writing an emo-Ree, but this chapter is kind of...I don't know. I hoped that by this point, I'd have done a good enough job developing him so that it doesn't seem so emo...but I'm not sure if I achieved that. I was just adding in a "scar theory" and a "Reala's envy" theory. Forgive me. The next chapters will be better.

Pay really close attention to the relationship explanation! "I love you" means "I love you, my brother/best friend/partner in the world." And that is all. More extreme cutesy fluffiness. Beware...

There's a specific reason why NiGHTS hugs Owl after the door disappears, but I'm not expecting anyone to figure it out. The ideas presented in this chapter of the story are less fully developed and that part is still especially ambivalent. I'll explain it in the bonus at the end.

You know the drill: NiGHTS, Reala, Owl, Wizeman, exc. are Sonic Team's. I own Tiana and now Robert! ...And I guess I partly own Hannie and Reese (it's difficult to explain...) But I partly DON'T own Hannie and Reese too! But I didn't describe what they looked like...

Next update is...I don't know! I never have a schedule these days! But I know I really need to do a great big outline of the end very soon. Only two more chapters remain, folks! And they'll probably be shorter than this one. At least I should hope so.

(-)

Chapter 9: The Forbidden Nightopia

Tiana stood, staring down at the body for several seconds, too stunned to more or even think. One instant, he'd been hovering before her, smiling into her face, and the next, he was strewn lifelessly across the floor, apparently unconscious. She had to do something! But what?! What could she do?! She couldn't think of anything. Her mind went completely blank--shocked and paralyzed.

"Ohmygosh, _Tiana_!" a cheery, high-pitched voice suddenly called out, as a familiar purple creature came swooping in from behind her. "You're baaaaack!!"

"NiGHTS!" She whirled around, the distress in her face apparent, her eyes wide and her cheeks pale.

"What's the matter?" he asked, casually, though with genuine concern in his voice.

"R-Reala's..."

"..._Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh_!!"

She didn't need to explain any further. NiGHTS caught sight of the red-and-white limbs sprawled across the floor and let out a terrible screech. He was at his side in a split-second, gripping tight to his shoulders and looking him all over. "Aaaaugh! Aaaaaugh! Aaaaugh!"

"U-Um..." Tiana uneasily spoke, taking one tiny step back from the scene. "You don't have to scream..."

"_Aaaaaaaaaaaaaugh_!" NiGHTS wailed, pressing his brother's limp body to his own. "OhmyGod! OhmyGod, _Reeeeee_! _What happened_?!"

"I-I don't know..." Tiana tried to tell him, feeling terribly responsible. "He just...collapsed. After we came back from the final reality..."

"Haahhh...hihh...hah..." NiGHTS took deep breaths, sniffling back the tears that had immediately sprung to his eyes and trying to calm himself down. He gently pulled away from Reala, placing his head back against the soft carpet, and pressed a hand to his little chest, over the crystal. He fingered the crystal first, checking his "pulse", then the surface underneath, to check his breathing. "He's unconscious," he gravely announced. "Sleeping."

"_Sleeping_?" Tiana stepped forwards again, now that she was sure NiGHTS wouldn't turn on her in a fit of hysteria. "Well, wake him up! This is no time to just drop off to sleep!"

"No," NiGHTS spoke again, his voice soft and strangely breathless. "Even if we could wake him up, we definitely shouldn't. He...needs to sleep." And then, much to Tiana's surprise, NiGHTS gently folded Reala's long body into his arms and lifted back into the air. Reala's red-horned head flopped back away from him, and one of his arms swung down, like a ragdoll. NiGHTS tucked his own arm securely under his knees, holding him close to his own chest, bridal-style. Being creatures suited to the air, and with no bones or internal organs, they weighed less than half as much as humans, and Tiana probably could've picked Reala up herself without too much trouble.

NiGHTS carried him down the hallway towards her bedroom, and she worriedly followed behind. It was so uncomfortable. Reala looked dead to her, aside from the soft rising and falling of his chest, which she couldn't see clearly. She was afraid. Had this strange sleeping disease finally gotten the better of him? Had she made it worse, by attacking him? Was he going to wake up? Would he be okay after he woke up? It was terrible, to have this happen...right now, when she had only just realized that she cared about him.

NiGHTS began to fly to the right as soon as he entered her room, heading for the cot, but Tiana interrupted. "Put him on my bed," she offered. "That cot's not comfortable."

"Are you sure?" NiGHTS turned around, tucking Reala's head in to his shoulder. "I have no idea how long it will be before he wakes up."

"It's okay," Tiana assured him. "I can sleep on the floor. I don't care how long it takes."

So NiGHTS hovered up to the side of her bed and carefully placed Reala's body onto it, tucking the covers over him like a concerned mother. At least now, Tiana could see him breathing, and she relaxed just a little bit. NiGHTS sighed, deeply, and lowered his floating head. He seated himself, gently, on the edge of the bed, next to him. For a while, neither of them said anything.

"So..." Tiana finally asked, her voice whispery and unsure. "What happened to him?"

"He collapsed," NiGHTS said again, as if it wasn't completely obvious. "He...ran out of energy. Well...normal energy." He reached forward again, feeling the hard, solid point of Reala's crystal through the covers. "I...I know what's wrong with him now."

Tiana seated herself on a stool near her bookcase to listen, leaning forward with rapt attention.

NiGHTS sighed again. "I can't believe I didn't realize it sooner..." He looked into Tiana's wide, searching eyes, and knew he'd have to explain the whole thing to her so that she could understand. He'd even have to tell her about _that_. But she had a right to know. She was Reala's bonded Explorer, and she had a right to know what was going on with him.

"Well...we guardians are a little bit like humans in that we use energy. Everything we do requires energy--talking, flying, dancing, even simple little things like lifting a finger and breathing. But, of course, breathing only uses the tiniest, microscopic amount of energy, while bigger tasks, like paralooping, require quite a lot. Dualizing uses the most energy, out of everything we are capable of doing. It requires a tremendous amount of energy to take another soul into our bodies, and to hold it there for a long stretch of time. But usually, there's plenty enough time between Dualizations for the energy to be replaced."

Tiana's heart sank in her chest. _So...it _is_ my fault_. "And I...I Dualized with him twice in a matter of just two days..."

NiGHTS firmly shook his head. "No. Two days is plenty of time to build up enough energy for Dualization. He should have been able to come out of that just fine. I'm talking minutes. I would surely pass out if I had to Dualize twice within thirty minutes. But two days...that should've been more than enough time for him to recover. But..."

NiGHTS began to softly rub the smooth surface of Reala's crystal, beneath the covers, his head lowered, forlornly. "But normally, whatever energy we need is produced by our own soul crystals. That's why I never run out. It takes several minutes to replace the energy used by Dualization, but energy from breathing or talking is replaced almost instantaneously. That's why I never need to eat...or sleep. All the energy I need is produced within my own body. But Reala...well..."

Gently, NiGHTS rolled the covers down over his fluctuating chest with one gloved hand. He turned away again. "Feel my crystal," he told Tiana.

Tiana moved a bit closer, intensely curious, but hesitated when she held out her hand. She suddenly remembered Reala being uncomfortable with NiGHTS touching his crystal, like it was painful and repulsive to have anyone else touching it. It was like having a stranger reaching out and laying his bare hands over your soul.

"It's okay," NiGHTS assured her, with a smile. "You're my friend, so I don't mind."

So slowly, hesitantly, Tiana reached out towards that sacred spot...and gently touched her fingertips to the softly glowing red jewel.

"_Eeyow_!" Immediately, her hand jumped back, the ends of her fingers stinging acutely. The surface was white-hot, like the edge of the sun. Tiana stuck her fingers in her mouth, praying that she wouldn't get burn marks there. NiGHTS just smiled, innocently back at her. Tiana glared down at him as if to say, "If you knew it was going to burn me, why'd you make me touch it?!"

"Now...feel Reala's."

Tiana gave him a suspicious glance, but her curiosity was getting the better of her again. She came to the side of the bed and gazed down into the long blue crystal softly moving up and down over his chest. NiGHTS gave her a solemn smile, urging her on.

She knelt down closer and began to reach her hand forward. It felt a little more uncomfortable, since she hadn't recieved permission from Reala himself to touch it...but since he was firmly unconscious, he wouldn't feel it at all. Tiana's fingers automatically tried to jump back as she brought them closer, fearing another burning hot surface. They twitched, nervously and hesitantly...but at last, she pressed their tips against the smooth side of the crystal...then let her whole hand slide over it.

It was cool and hard, just like a regular piece of stone. Actually, it was colder even than that...icy cold. A shiver went up her arm and through her body, and an unexplainable sadness went with it. It wasn't right. It shouldn't be so cold...so dead inside. Even the blue color of the crystal was deep and cool, like a colored bulb left unlit. She slipped her hand off again and knelt, gravely before the bed, feeling the coldness spread throughout her own body. "Why...why is it so cold?"

NiGHTS folded his hands over his lap. "I am melded," he explained. "I am completely in touch with my own crystal...with my own soul. It is an intimate and integral part of me that I cling onto with all that I have. I love it and accept it. It is merged with who I am. And because it is so much a part of me, it produces my own energy for me. That's why it feels so hot to the touch."

"So...Reala...isn't?"

NiGHTS nodded. "He accepted his soul and let it connect back onto his body...but he has not completely melded with it again. He is incapable of producing his own energy...so he must get it from outside sources--eating, sleeping, and resting. He has been sleeping more and more lately in order to recover his spent energy. And during the past two days, he hadn't been getting enough sleep, with the whole final reality catastrophe. I remember him lying on the couch almost all day after you came back the first time. Dualizing and having that fight with you had left him completely exhausted. But he tried not to show it around us, because he didn't want us to worry about him. You had enough to deal with already."

Tiana's heart clutched. _He...did all that for me...at the expense of his own health? He was probably still tired when we Dualized the second time. Yet he never said anything. It must have been an enormous strain. _She almost felt like bursting into tears as she looked back at him again. Because she had just realized that he _did_ care about her--and enough to put his own health at risk. But there was one thing she still just couldn't understand.

"Why?!" Tiana burst out at last. "Why is he like this?! Why isn't he melded, like you?! Why can't he make his energy? He seemed perfectly fine before, when I first met him! He never had to sleep so much..."

"Well, when you first met him, he had only just come back to this realm from Nightmare...he had only just remembered his identity as the Waking World's guardian. He still had a fair amount of Nightmare energy coursing around inside of him. That's why his stripes were still black. As you created more of your ideya, and he recovered more of his memories, the Nightmare energy began to fade out...now I fear that soon, there won't be any of it left to support him at all."

NiGHTS's voice choked up at the end of his sentence, overwhelmed with worry and despair, and for a moment, he couldn't even get up the will to continue. He was only just now realizing the gravity of the situation and his brother's condition. It always came back to this. Everything always came back to this single, terrible, heart-rending event. The one event that started it all.

"And...and for your other questions..." he finally whispered out, lifting his face from his white-gloved hands. "...It's...a very long and sorrowful story. But...but I think you ought to hear it."

Tiana seated herself firmly back on the stool. She'd begun to rise during her outburst, as if to force the answers out of him. But now, at last, he was going to tell her. For a while, she'd had a sense that there was something she didn't know--some secret that they were withholding from her. Some of her past experiences were still a little unclear--such as why Reala had been so mad at her for talking to NiGHTS. A small shiver went through her heart when she realized that perhaps she shouldn't be listening to him now. But...she trusted him. She trusted both of them...at least most of the time. And she had to know. The pain behind NiGHTS's deep, sorrowful eyes was real. He was so excitable, carefree, and innocent all the time...but there was wisdom, gravity, and a heavy burden behind those eyes. He looked a thousand years old.

He turned away from her a moment, delving into his inner soul. "But please...you mustn't tell him about any of this. You really _must _make sure that you don't accidentally say something about it, or otherwise hint at it. I'm...not really sure if he remembers yet. He definitely recognizes the basic concept...like something he had learned. But I'm not sure if he remembers _how _he learned it. And if he ever fully remembers it...it could have...disastrous consequences."

Another little tug pulled on Tiana's heart. The secret was _that _important? Should she really be hearing it, then? _Never, ever, say anything about this to Reala_, she told herself. _Don't even hint at it. Don't ever, ever tell..._ "Okay," she agreed, once she had ingrained the instructions in her mind.

NiGHTS turned towards her again, pressing his lips together and squeezing his eyes further into his head. He obviously didn't want to talk about it. Even just thinking about it was hurting him. "W-Well..." he finally began. "Remember when I told you that Reala was brainwashed into being a Nightmaren? Well, that actually happened twice. There was a time before...the first time he had his memory erased. And a very long time ago...before that first time...he was the guardian of the Waking World, as he is now."

Tiana glanced nervously back at Reala's softly breathing body on the bed behind NiGHTS, and worried that he might possibly be listening in somehow, despite being unconscious. He and NiGHTS did seem to have some kind of semi-telepathic link.

NiGHTS finally opened his eyes again, though it pained him to look into Tiana's face. He smiled a little bit, though it vanished almost immediately. His downward-sloping sensors framed his paling pink face.

"And at that time, I had a pair of Dreamers--Reese and Hannie, I believe their names were. And Reala had an Explorer. The last Explorer he ever had, before you. His name was...was...R...R-Rob...ert..." He said it so slowly and softly, as if he had trouble getting it past his lips. As if the name was some kind of taboo.

"Robert?" Tiana asked, and NiGHTS gave a start to hear it spoken so freely, from her lips. But he realized what she was trying to do.

"Y-Yes..." he spoke again, settling down. "R-R-Robert." His teeth automatically clenched, trying to block it from coming out...but it was just a little bit easier now. Tiana gave him a tiny, grim smile of encouragement, and he drew his will again to continue.

"H-He was...a boy...about your age, actually. A bit like you, too. Though he was more...cheerful." NiGHTS choked on a snag beginning in the back of his mouth...similar to held-in tears.

Tiana shared in his sentiments for a moment, just by the sound of his voice. _What happened to him? _she wondered. She was about to find out.

"A-Anyway," NiGHTS forced himself to continue, scrunching his body further inwards, as if to push it out of himself. "They made a great team...but then...he had to go through the final reality."

And Tiana knew all too well what that meant. Immediately, her heart went out to the boy, though she knew next to nothing about him.

"...A-And he did the same thing. He turned on him. He attacked him, tried to kill him, and then just...left him."

A coldness was creeping up throughout Tiana's chest. Everything sounded so familiar. Everything was exactly the same. _That's...what I did. The same things..._I _did..._

"B-b-b-but..." NiGHTS was strangled by his held-in tears, and he had to close his eyes again to block out the sight of Tiana's face before him and the feel of his brother's covered feet against his back. "He...he couldn't handle it. He...went insane. Hallucinating and attacking anyone who dared to get near him. He stayed locked inside his room...until...until he...he met...me..."

_Him? _Tiana wondered, with awe. _Until he met NiGHTS? He hadn't met NiGHTS before then? He...did something? _

NiGHTS looked up again, sensing her confusion, his face softening for a moment. "Yes...it wasn't really common in those days. For his Explorers to meet me...or for my Dreamers to meet him. It was never supposed to happen. And...I suppose this was why..." NiGHTS's head fell back into his hands. "I-It was mostly one of the Dreamers who did it. Hannie, I think. We were Dualized. R-Robert began sleeping a lot. To escape from reality. And he managed to come to the gateway of Nightopia...even though Explorers are never supposed to become conscious inside of it."

Tiana's recurring dreams with the owl fluttering over her paralyzed form burst into her mind. _So...that's the Gate of Nightopia? _she realized. _And I'm not allowed to get up and walk around. "I can never be a Visitor"..._

"And he...saw Hannie and I..." NiGHTS painfully continued. "We knew how much agony he was going through. Hannie offered to let him come to her Nightopia and play. And...and he was overjoyed. He loved the Dreaming World as soon as he set eyes on it. He felt comfortable and joyous once again. But then he had to wake up."

NiGHTS forced his head up again, though his eyes stayed closed. A few teardrops were beginning to glisten in their corners now. "And to wake up again--to find himself plunged back into those terrors and gruesome monstrosities, after he'd thought he'd finally gotten away from them...was simply unbearable. He couldn't stand it. He was completely crushed. I...can't describe it. No amount of words can describe it. He couldn't take it anymore. So finally, he decided...he decided...h-he-he decided...th-that he would go back to the Dreaming World...permanently."

Tiana sat forward, breathless. _Permanently? How is that possible?! You'd have to go to sleep...permanently..._ A shiver went through her veins.

"And so..." NiGHTS confirmed it for sure. "...H-he went out of his room, just once...to his father's medicine cabinet...a-and he got out all his prescriptions...a-a-and emptied all the bottles...a-a-and s-swallowed all of the pills...and then...laid down in his bed...and w-went to sleep...forever."

A terrible, dreaded silence followed this announcement, in which Tiana could almost see the boy...lying still and cold in his bed...all alone. The image was made all the more terrifying by the fact that she had so much in common with him. _I...I wonder...if I hadn't met NiGHTS before...if I had gotten a glimpse of the Dreaming World during that time...if I would have...killed myself too..._ The idea seemed horrifying to her now...but with the desperate state of her mind before...it might have been possible.

"A-and Reala..." NiGHTS's voice was so soft now...almost a whisper. The tears were beginning to slip down his cheeks, and he pressed his hands closer, trying to push them back in. "He had gone so far with Robert already... He had formed a connection with him...stronger than the one you have now. Much deeper. It was because he was melded. His soul had been a part of him...and a part of it had belonged to Robert. The moment he died...this terrible, deep, crushing pain went through him. It was utter anguish...it felt like..."

NiGHTS shook his head, suddenly and violently. "No. I can't even begin to imagine what it felt like. It was...the most tremendous pain in the entire world. He was desperate...just to get it to stop. He'd do anything, just to get that pain to go away. He knew that it came from his connection...his soul. He tore the crystal from his chest...and tried to use it...t-to blind himself with. To gouge out his eyes...s-so he'd never have to see the pain and destruction he'd caused. A-And in so doing...he broke his melding with his crystal. With his soul. He passed out after that...but when he woke up, the pain was over. He couldn't feel anything. He just looked at Robert's body...completely emotionless. It was like he'd gone numb."

_So that explains it too..._ Tiana thought, a few tears beginning to poke at her own burning eyes. _His cold-heartedness... He tried to _blind_ himself? _

"It d-didn't work, of course," NiGHTS explained, sniffling and mopping up his tears with the back of his hand. "His eyes remained unharmed, and he was still able to see perfectly fine. But it did leave...those black, burned marks...across his eyelids..."

_I never thought about that... I just assumed that he always had them..._

NiGHTS frowned, deeply, and sat up a little on the end of the bed again, trying to compose himself. It was almost over now. "He felt...displaced, I guess. Like he didn't belong in the Waking World anymore. He could no longer feel his connection with it. He figured it was useless. All he could do was bring pain and destruction to whoever he came in contact with. So...why not do it in a place where that was normal, and even appreciated?"

NiGHTS sighed. "By chance, he discovered Nightmare...and its dark and despairing essence was so close to his own at that time that he just...became a part of it. He gave himself over to the Nightmare Master, Wizeman, who wiped away all of his memories and remade him with a new soul, connected to his own. And the rest is history."

The two of them shared a moment of silence. And Tiana wept. She pressed her face into her hands...and softly wept. For Robert. For Reala. And for NiGHTS, who had kept this terrible burden all by himself for so long. It was just so..._sad_...

NiGHTS gently reached out, to the side...and began to softly rub Reala's blue crystal again...as if physically soothing his heart. He looked just as sad, though he had finally stopped crying. His round cheeks shined with wetness. "And he never truly melded with it again. That's why the second time...Wizeman was able to tear it away from him so easily. Perhaps, unconsciously, he's afraid to let it. Afraid to be hurt like that again."

It all made sense now. Why Reala hadn't wanted her talking to NiGHTS. Why he put up so many defenses to prevent her soul from reaching too much into his own. Everything...why... She looked back at his sleeping form, and suddenly wanted to just...hug him. Like NiGHTS. She couldn't look into his face now without remembering where those eye markings had come from, and feeling this deep sorrow. It was going to be harder to keep her promise than she'd thought.

"B-But...but we have to tell him," she spoke up, as NiGHTS tucked the covers back around his shoulders. "He has to meld with his crystal again. Otherwise, he'll just run out of energy. Sleeping can't support him forever. He needs to know, so he can figure out how to fix this!"

"No!" NiGHTS insisted. "He can't! If he remembers everything...and remembers what it felt like...he could go berserk again. We can't risk it." He pulled back at last, smiling, grimly, folding his hands in his lap. "I have been working on it myself...secretly. There were a few times recently when he _did_ meld with it...just for a moment or two. If he can just let it go...all the way..."

But Tiana wasn't so sure of that. It was a method she couldn't be sure about. Knowing Reala as she did now, she had to doubt whether he actually would ever "let it go all the way", even if he knew that his life was in danger.

It was up to him now. He would _have _to meld again...or he would die.

(-)

Two days passed without a word. NiGHTS didn't leave for a moment, even to do his ceremony, and Tiana had trouble sleeping against her fuzzy aqua carpet. She was too worried to sleep peacefully. She was too worried to concentrate in school. She had to assure her mother that everything was okay--that she wasn't going into another depression. And still Reala remained deep in slumber, not even turning in his sleep. Tiana began to wonder if he was in a coma.

But then, late Friday afternoon, he suddenly woke up. He moved slowly and carefully, sweeping the covers off and pulling himself up into a sitting position, with much effort. All of his limbs felt as stiff and heavy as lead weights. The world spun around him in fuzzy blobs of color, and he propped his head in his hand for a moment and waited for it to stop. "Uahhhhhhhhh..."

Immediately, both NiGHTS and Tiana were at attention, too awed for the moment to move.

Reala carefully lifted his head again and took a glance around the room. He blinked his scarred eyes at them, blearily. "...How long was I out?"

"Two days," Tiana answered, her voice solid, despite the shiver shooting through her.

"Two days..." he repeated, and his head fell back down into his palm.

"...Ree!" NiGHTS finally broke the silence, zooming forward and throwing his arms around him. He was a little more careful this time, as if afraid to jostle him too much. "I'm so glad you're okay now..."

And at that moment, all of his strength seemed to return to him. Reala growled and pushed NiGHTS off, simultaneously flying up out of the bed. "I _told _you not to worry about me! I only overexerted myself because of the final reality. There's no reason to get so worked up about it."

NiGHTS knelt down into the bed, a knowing little frown falling over his face. "Ree..."

But Reala ignored him, turning this time to Tiana, who was currently seated over her red sleeping bad, on the floor. "And you. You really must be some kind of idiot."

Tiana was a little surprised to hear him picking at her so soon. He'd only just woken up--did he even remember smiling to her?

"Don't you know that, because I was unconscious, I couldn't feel _anything_? It's only common sense. So it doesn't matter what I was lying on--I couldn't feel it! There was absolutely no point in putting me on your bed. You could very well have just put me on the cot or even let me stay on the floor! I can't believe you didn't think of that."

"I'm sorry for taking up your bed for two whole days," NiGHTS translated. "I feel really bad about it."

"Shut up!" Reala snapped at him. "That's not what I meant!"

Tiana smiled. It felt better, now that he was awoke. She could think of Reala as _Reala_, not as this strange, distant creature who had tried to mutilate himself. She had never known that Reala...and maybe she never would. He didn't even know that Reala himself.

"Well, what can I say? You're too easy to read."

"But you don't have to insist that you're right all the time! You're always right, in your own little mind. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks."

"I only do it because you always have to be so stubborn and you can't just say what you mean!"

"And what makes you think that I don't mean what I say?"

"Who's up for a quick game of Flopper Racing?" Tiana cut in, snatching a controller off her bookcase.

"Ooh! Me!" NiGHTS immediately flew to her side. "Ohh, but we don't have a third thingymabobber."

"Doesn't matter--I'm not playing anyway." Reala glided to the window. "I'm just going out for a bit. I need some fresh air."

"Oh." NiGHTS whirled around, reluctant to let him out of his sight. He couldn't help but worry, though he knew he shouldn't be too overprotective of him. "Um...just...be careful."

Reala groaned. "I'm going to be _fine_, okay? I don't need you hovering around me all the time. I'll come back in twenty minutes, perfectly fine. You'll see."

And he did. Reala returned again, just as Tiana was shutting down her PolyPack, refreshed and prepared to do anything. And then he went to bed at seven o' clock.

(-)

He woke up again at eleven o' clock the next day. And it was a good thing that it was a weekend, and Tiana was there when it happened.

She was just innocently flipping through some of her older books, trying to decide which ones she could get rid of. NiGHTS had gone to the kitchen to assess the small amount of food that remained. He was going to make lunch for them, in the hopes that Reala would wake up in time for lunch, but there really wasn't anything left to be wasted.

Tiana simply tossed one crinkled adolescent novel into a corner of her room, when a terrible crash suddenly shook the floor, from the window behind her. She leaped around with a gasp, to find Reala's body hunched against the floor, the cot collapsed on top of him. "OhmyGod!" she cried, hurrying to his side and automatically bending to help him up.

"I'm fine, I'm fine!" Reala grumbled and shoved the cot off of him, with a surprising amount of strength, considering that he had just collapsed again. "Just...tripped, I guess." He crawled out from underneath the light metal, to his large, pale feet, quickly placing the cot back in order and smoothing out the black wrappings around his torso. Then he made a short leap into the air.

He did not expect to land again. His body fell right back down, his legs buckling under him in surprise...and he fell again to the floor with a _boom_.

Tiana again knelt over him in concern, offering him a hand. Reala only glared at it as if it was some kind of disgusting, slimy snail, and pulled himself back up again, to his feet. For the first time, Tiana noticed that he actually didn't have any toes. His feet only sloped into gentle points at the ends, like a pair of shoes. It was strange that she'd never noticed before--he took off his boots every night before going to sleep. But his feet had never been important before. He was frowning at them now, bitterly.

"Um...what just happened?" Tiana asked, though she was pretty sure she knew already.

"Tripped." The word was hard and insistent. And that settled it for Tiana.

Reala took a slow, careful step back towards the cot, and stooped to pick up his boots and jacket, on the floor.

"Gee, you're awfully clumsy today."

His eyes flashed dangerously at her from the edge of the cot where he sat and tugged his clothing back on, and she had to firmly remind herself that these were things she really couldn't tease him about.

"Yay, Ree, you're awake!" NiGHTS called, as he came flying through the doorway a moment later, carrying two tiny, square sandwiches on a platter. He swiftly set them on Tiana's bed and zoomed up to his disgruntled brother's side. "I'm so glad! Otherwise, I would've scraped up this lunch for nothing! How are you feeling?"

"I'm fi--"

"He can't fly."

NiGHT's mouth fell open. Reala nearly leaped off the bed and throttled Tiana, right then and there. His face flared bright red with rage.

"You can't _fly_?" NiGHTS repeated to him, aghast.

The deep, warning glare now turned on NiGHTS.

"I-I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. You can certainly get by without flying, but, but, but...but I mean..."

Reala let out his breath--a sharp, frustrated hiss--and shoved himself off the cot, to stand next to his floating brother. "Okay--fine! I can't fly. I don't have the power to fly anymore. I lost the ability. Or whatever. And that means I'm getting worse. I'm getting weaker, I'm deteriorating, something is happening to me, something is sapping my energy, something is slowly sucking away my strength, and _I want to know why_!!"

His sharp words fell into silence like stabbing icicles. Both Tiana and NiGHTS felt their chests simultaneously clutch. Though neither of them could say that they hadn't seen it coming. This was going to take a little working...

NiGHTS sucked in his breath. "Well, yeah. About that..."

"You _knew_?!" Reala leaped onto the bed, putting himself on a higher physical level than NiGHTS, his face contorted his rage, and his hands clenched up into fists. "You _knew_, and yet you didn't say _anything_?!"

"W-Well..." NiGHTS floated back a little. Even in his weakened state, Reala still had a lot of fight in him. "It's...complicated..."

"It doesn't _matter_ how 'complicated' it is!" he snarled. "I have a right to know what's going on with my own _body_!"

"Y-You're energy-deficient!" NiGHTS finally squeaked out. He'd have to weave a few half-truths to tell him without _really_ telling him. "You're not producing any energy within your own body. And so that's why you have to sleep, to recover it. But sleeping isn't giving you enough...apparently, now, not even enough to fly."

Slowly, Reala began to calm down, relaxing his fists and kneeling down on the cot. "Produced within my own body?" he questioned, looking down at himself, as if hoping to find the center of production somewhere visible on the outside.

"It's in your crystal," NiGHTS quickly added, breathless.

A long and uncomfortable silence followed. Reala stared down at his chest in awe, as if something had just dawned on him...though NiGHTS could clearly tell that it wasn't "that" just yet. "But...but I wasn't like this in the beginning," he finally spoke again. "The very first night...I didn't even sleep at all. And I was never so tired..."

"The Nightmare energy is leaving you," NiGHTS almost whispered. "I should have realized it, when your black color started fading out. I...didn't want to think about it."

Reala scowled. "That's ridiculous. I never had 'Nightmare energy'. Whatever powers I had then, I still have now."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," NiGHTS gave him a forlorn little smirk. "I bet you can't even make one of your energy balls anymore. Go on, give it a try."

Reala shot him a baleful look, but raised one hand in compliance and stared intensely into its palm. Nothing happened. He clenched it into a fist and released. Still nothing. He gritted his teeth, his hand trembling with effort. A tiny spark leaped up for one second, like the flicker of a tiny flame, and instantly died. Reala growled and squeezed his eyes shut, pushing everything he had into the effort.

"Well, for goodness's sake, don't waste it!" NiGHTS cried, leaping forward, as if to grab his hand.

Reala fell back, his chest collapsing in to his knees and heaving as if he'd just run a marathon. NiGHTS moved in a little closer to comfort him, but he shot him a terrible glare, warning him to stay back.

"W-Well...you get the idea..." NiGHTS lowered to the ground, putting himself on an equal level.

Reala finally caught his breath and weakly lifted himself up again. "So...what do I have to do...to start producing it again?"

NiGHTS tucked his hands behind his back. "...I don't know."

Another oppressive silence. Reala's breathing softly evened out.

Tiana finally couldn't take it anymore and crept slowly towards the platter of sandwiches on her bed. She was getting really hungry, since she'd skipped breakfast that morning.

"Forget this." Reala finally recovered enough of his strength to slip back off the end of the cot to his feet, shoving NiGHTS aside in the process. "I'm going out on the--outside."

"But I made a sandwich for you."

Tiana immediately dropped the sandwich she'd picked up.

"I don't care." Reala began to storm off towards the bedroom door...but didn't get to take more than three steps before he really _did_ trip. He suddenly jerked backwards, onto his butt.

Tiana snorted.

He looked like he was ready to stab her, if he'd had the energy to do it.

"Are you all right?" NiGHTS glided to his side. "I really don't think you should be going outside. You'd have to climb down all those stairs, and you're not even used to walking yet..."

"Well, fine, I'll go to the parlor, then! Or the bathroom! Or the closet! As long as it's _away from you_!" Reala shoved himself back up and walked as fast as he could through the door, arms outstretched for balance.

Tiana and NiGHTS could only watch him go, silently perplexed. Tiana swallowed a bit of sandwich, unconcerned. "He's just throwing a moody fit," she told NiGHTS. "He'll get over it."

NiGHTS sighed. "I know. But...if he remembers again...in this state, he'd... Well, I don't even want to think about that."

"It'll be okay," Tiana automatically replied. But now she had to stop and wonder. Would it _really _be "okay"? She'd just passed the most difficult hurdle in this experience--it was supposed to get better after this. But thus far, she could only see it getting worse...

(-)

It took the rest of the day before Reala really got comfortable with walking, and didn't trip at all anymore. Most of the time, he tripped over his own disproportionally large feet, and the boots didn't help, especially as they now seemed to be growing looser and bulkier. After much practicing up and down the hall, through the kitchen, and up and down the stairs, he was even more tired than usual...and by the time he conked out in his cot at seven, his feet and ankles were throbbing all over. They weren't meant for walking, especially for extended periods of time, and his ankles especially hurt, being actually too small for his feet, without the padded support of his boots.

NiGHTS would've offered to give him a foot massage, if he'd known that it was bothing him so much. But Reala didn't say anything to him or Tiana about it, only mumbling a small "hmmmmph" into his pillow in pain before going entirely unconscious. In fact, that was what worried NiGHTS the most. If something was wrong, if he was in any kind of pain or discomfort, he knew he wouldn't say anything about it. And so that was why he had to constantly ask.

Over the course of that afternoon, Reala's anger gradually dissipated, and he allowed NiGHTS into his presence again, though he still didn't take kindly to any inquiries about his health.

For the next few days, he continued this pattern of going to sleep at seven, and getting up around eleven, though that all added up to more time spent asleep than awake. And it was actually fairly pleasant during that brief span. Reala was in somewhat of a better mood, now that he could walk and climb down the stairs to go outside. He and NiGHTS played a lot of Tiana's video games--he could enjoy it, being on an equal level with him. Tiana just let them take over her bedroom at those times, squeezing herself into her desk to do whatever homework or doodling she had to do.

It was comforting to see them like this again--snapping back and forth at each other, calling names, teasing, breaking into pseudo-wrestling matches over who should've gotten the gold bar or who shot whom with the homing firecracker. It was just like before...and for a while, they could simply forget about Reala's slow deterioration. He certainly seemed healthy enough, whacking NiGHTS off the bed next to him and leaping to the side before he could pop up again and try to tackle him.

Though sometimes, he got so caught up in the comeptitive spirit that he was completely wiped out by the end of the day. It was even worse on the second day. NiGHTS came back from fixing up a snack in the kitchen to find him slumped over his controller, exhausted. He'd had to take a little half-hour nap to refresh himself. And he never told anyone that he was starting to feel tired, until it was obvious that he was nodding off on whatever he was doing.

"This can't last much longer," NiGHTS whispered to Tiana, while Reala was taking his nap. And suddenly, all of her uncertain anxiety was back in full force. "Our bodies are not equipped to process external energy like you human beings. Even with all the sleep he is getting, it doesn't add up to much in the end. Pretty soon, the Nightmare energy will be gone completely."

"B-But he seems all right now," Tiana uneasily replied. "Apart from not being able to fly. He hasn't collapsed again, or tripped. All that playing around with you--he seems pretty energetic."

NiGHTS lowered his head, shaking it a little, sadly. "No. It can't last. I can already tell that his body is putting in all of its efforts just to keep him at this level of health. Haven't you noticed?"

Tiana's eyes stared up into his lowered face. "Noticed what?" She hadn't really been paying attention, anyway...because she didn't want to.

"He's getting thinner."

"_Thinner_?" Tiana had to exclaim at that. "That's impossible! If he got any thinner, he wouldn't be there at all!" And it was a good thing that Reala was napping, or else he would've strangled her for that remark.

"Well...it's subtle," NiGHTS explained. "He mentioned once that his boots were too loose to walk properly in. The boots certainly haven't gotten any bigger. And I've noticed that his jacket has been getting a little bit looser...and now even his pants are a tiny bit baggy."

Tiana's eyes automatically wandered over towards her bed, where he was resting, unconscious. She wanted to see this strange, awful phenomenon for herself...and yet she didn't want to _see_ it. It was something that she never should have to see...something that never should be seen.

NiGHTS's uncomfortable fidgeting told her that he felt the same. It was so strange and unreal to him. Reala was becoming even _smaller_ than he was now...and that just wasn't right at all. "It can't last," he softly repeated, dreading the words as they came out of his mouth. And that was true. All these uncomfortable images...these growing tensions, these sad underlying facts...were only a small prelude to the even more terrible spectacle that was just about to unfold.

(-)

That afternoon had been the same as any other so far. It was 3:30, and Tiana was rearranging her room a little bit, while NiGHTS rifled through her book collection in boredom. She liked to keep her room somewhat neat nowadays, though not nearly as neat as Reala liked it. She still allowed some clutter to gather on her desk, but at least she didn't have to swim through a sea of papers, books, and dirty clothes just to get to her closet anymore.

Reala was out taking a little stroll around the house, as he usually did every day. He was still unhealthily thin, and dark rims had begun to form under his eyes...but at least all of his cuts and bruises had magically healed, thanks to NiGHTS's medicine. All was perfectly peaceful and quiet. That was, until he came back.

Reala stepped back into the room, panting from climbing the stairs, his body shaking as he leaned against the wall. Tiana and NiGHTS turned their heads. And NiGHTS was just about to say something...when he suddenly collapsed again, to his knees.

"Ohmygosh, Ree!" NiGHTS was at his side in a millisecond. "What happened?!"

Tiana bit her lip and stepped closer. This was the first time he'd collapsed without having tripped on anything...since the time that started it all, of course.

NiGHTS knelt and began to reach out towards him.

"_Leave me alone_!" Reala suddenly lashed out, smacking his outstretched hand away. "I don't need your help! I'm _fine_!"

He seized the nearest object--Tiana's hamper--and squeezed his fingers around it, pushing down with all his might. Slowly, and with a great effort, his body rose up off the floor. He leaned his torso against the side of the hamper and hooked his fingernails into its woven cords of wood, desperately scraping at them. He took a moment to rest, panting and groaning, softly.

"Ree..." It was nearly breaking NiGHTS's heart to see him like this. He just wanted to do something...anything. He reached out for his heaving little shoulders.

"Don't touch me!!"

NiGHTS froze. Apparently, Reala wasn't tired enough not to be able to sense his movements.

"I'm not _weak_! I can do this _myself_!" Reala squeezed down on the sides of the hamper, nearly tearing the weaving apart. His teeth grinded tightly together, his eyes clenched shut, every muscle of his body strained with all the force it had, trembling with the enormous effort. "Ghhhhhh..._Ughhhhhhhhhh_!!" His voice growled out as sharp pain seared up within him. His knees lifted slightly off the floor. NiGHTS clutched his own hands to his face, tensely. A little bit higher...just a tiny little bit...

Reala's limbs shuddered, terribly. His face was red as a tomato. He looked like he might just explode any second. He tried to push himself just a little further up...so he could get his feet up...and his arms at last gave out. His body crumpled back to the floor, his head flopping down into the rug, obscuring his face. And there he stayed, softly heaving and shivering. The room fell silent for a merciful moment.

"Ree..." NiGHTS cooed again, carefully moving a little closer and chancing to reach towards him again. "It's okay. This was bound to happen eventually, and I can..."

"Sh-sh-shut up," Reala spat into the carpet. "Sh-Shut up--just shut up!"

NiGHTS set his face into a determined frown. That was it. He couldn't just let him lie here on the floor forever. He would take the matter into his own hands now. He floated back up...and bent softly over Reala's body, scooping him into his arms by the waist.

The instant NiGHTS's hands touched his body, all of his strength seemed to return at once. A fury seared through him, like liquid fire. "_No_!" Reala cried, battering down against NiGHTS's arms with his fists. "Let _go_ of me!! I don't want your help!! I don't _need_ your help!! _I'm not weak_!!"

NiGHTS lifted him off the floor, though he struggled desperately to hold on to his writhing, protesting body. He clenched his own arms tight around him, just trying to subdue his crazed attacks. "_Please_, Reala!" he cried, grabbing one of his arms and trying to hold it down by his side. "Stop this! Stop being so _stubborn_!"

Reala struggled out again, kicking and flailing, as if he were fighting for his life. He chomped down on NiGHTS's arm, tearing it away from him. "_I don't care_!!" he shrieked. "_I hate you_!! _Let me go_! LET ME GO!"

"_Stop this_!" NiGHTS yelled back. "_Stop it_--_just stop it_!!"

"Just _let go_!! I'm not weak!! I don't need your help!! _I hate you_!!"

Tiana shrank back, pressing herself to the desk, utterly shocked and apalled. She'd _never_ seen them fight like _this_. It was suddenly so strange and terrible. And worst of all was seeing Reala...reduced to this. This wild, emaciated creature, screaming and biting and kicking and pounding his fists against his brother, like a helpless, enraged child.

NiGHTS fought to restrain him, dragging his body across the room, wincing against the pain, his own face flushed with a different kind of anger and frustration. At last, he managed to throw himself over Tiana's bed, slamming Reala into the mattress, pinning him down by the shoulders.

"_Stop it_, Reala!!" he shrieked. "Just _stop it_! You're acting like...like a...like a _little kid_ throwing a _temper tantrum_!!"

Silence.

Reala's mouth fell open, quivering. His face immediately contorted into an awful, twisted expression of pure hatred. ...But then it softened just a little bit. His eyes shifted away from NiGHTS, and at last, he yanked his body around, out of his hands, facing sideways and glaring into the wall. "Fine. Whatever," he grumbled, his voice hard and cold. "Have it your way. But I'm _not_ weak."

NiGHTS softly lifted off, hanging in the air above him, his own body shaking from the heat of the fight. It was going to be okay...

Reala seized the covers of the bed, clenching them close over him and burying his face firmly in their shadows. "I'm not weak," he repeated, his voice growing softer and more calm, but still icy. "I'm not weak. I'm not weak. I'm not weak... Not...weak... I'm not...useless..." Then he slowly drifted off to sleep.

(-)

He remained asleep for the rest of that day. "I'm sorry--I just automatically threw him on your bed," NiGHTS had apologized to Tiana. "I'll move him later, if you want."

"No, no," she'd immediately responded. "I don't mind. He needs it. If he's...going to be stuck in bed from now on, it might as well be a comfortable one."

She'd ended up sleeping out in the parlor, on the couch, much to her mother's confusion. She just couldn't stand to be in her room now, with that terrible, tense atmosphere. If he woke up, what would she say? Was there anything she _could_ say? Would he still be angry? What if he tried to get up and ended up on the floor again? He was suddenly strange and distanced from her. And this coming so soon after she'd thought that she was finally able to understand him. Even the following day, she went into her room as little as possible, just to get notebooks and supplies.

NiGHTS, on the other hand, was just frustrated. He knew what was going on--Reala was just being too stubborn and prideful to admit that something was wrong, that he needed help. He couldn't stand being inferior to him in any possible way. And NiGHTS thought it was simply ridiculous and infantile. _I'm just trying to help him_, he fumed that night. _I want to help him because I care about him--not because I look down on him. Why can't he understand that?! _

At the rate he was going now, he would never re-assilmilate with his soul.

(-)

The world slowly opened up again around him. Ever since he'd defeated NiGHTS's vision, Reala hadn't been having any more dreams. Perhaps he wasn't really capable of dreaming after all. It felt like an endless black void was slowly swallowing him--the time he spent between voids gradually lessening. It was...worrisome.

Reala stared up at the slanted white ceiling. Everything was so quiet. Was he on Tiana's bed again? The idiot. It was so comfortable. He closed his eyes, though he wasn't tired anymore. He was completely alone now. Tiana and NiGHTS were gone. _They don't want to be around me_, Reala thought. _They can't stand being around me. Well, I don't blame them. _

He was even more disgusted with himself than ever. It reminded him of when he'd first looked down at his new body to see his slimmer legs and arms. Now they were even slimmer, still, and yet three times as heavy. Weaker, and smaller even than NiGHTS's.

_NiGHTS..._ Reala felt a tiny bit regretful for attacking him like that. No wonder he was gone now. But he couldn't help it. He couldn't stand it--watching NiGHTS flying around so easily...his strong arms clamping firmly around his waist...the force of his tackling blow. It made him sick. Just looking at him made him sick.

_Jealousy_, his mind berated him. Then, _no, no way. I am not jealous of _him_. I would never...want to be in his position. _

A little _creak_ came from somewhere to the left. "...Ree?" a soft voice spoke out. "Are you awake?"

Reala's eyes shot open. He pulled himself up, propping himself up in a sitting position. NiGHTS was hovering towards him, smiling and holding a large, brown paper bag. "I just went out to get you some food," he explained, raising his voice to a conversational level. "I know you haven't eaten anything in a while, and food will help give you some more energy."

For the moment, Reala could only stare at him, even as he placed the bag onto the end of the bed and seated himself behind it. _He...didn't leave me? _

NiGHTS only smiled, silently, folding his hands in his lap.

Reala at last glanced over at the grocery bag and noticed the curved edges of a couple of oranges poking up above the sides. "Uh...where did you get all that?"

"Inside a building," NiGHTS excitedly chirped. "There were all kinds of food in there, like it was some kind of food storage house. And these bags were lying out, for people to carry it in--it was really convenient."

Reala skeptically cocked an eye socket. "And how did you pay for it?"

"Pay for it?" NiGHTS was clearly confused. "Why do I have to pay for it?"

A tiny grin began to appear on Reala's face. "You stole it, then?"

"_Stole _it?!" NiGHTS's eyes bulged with panic. "Ohmygosh! It _belonged _to someone?!"

Reala burst out laughing. He was too weak to try to hold it back anymore. "_Yes _it belonged to someone!" he cried. "The store company! You just flew into a grocery store, filled up a bag with food, and then waltzed on out, without even noticing?!"

"Well, there were a lot of people in lines," NiGHTS considered. "But I thought they were just inspecting the food, the way they were laying it out on conveyor belts. And everything did have a number on it, but I didn't know what that meant."

"And no one tried to stop you?!"

"Well, everyone was staring at me, but I thought that was just because all they could see was a floating bag."

Reala doubled over, clutching his stomach. "Hihhihhihhihhihhihhihh! So...so, a grocery bag just flew off one of the cash registers--hihhihh--filled itself up, and then just floated away out the door, all by itself! Ihihhihhihhihhihh!! No one dares try to stop the phantom grocery theif!"

NiGHTS somehow didn't find it as funny. "Well, I didn't know!" he protested. "I've never had to find food in the Waking World before. I don't know how 'money' works. You know that!"

But Reala was now laughing too hard to respond. It gradually died down in another moment, but for some reason, it left him feeling lighter. As if all of his shame and resentment was now distant and less pressing. "Hah," he sighed, as he pulled the bag closer to him. _I definitely needed that_. It was the first time he'd ever thought of laughter as anything but ridiculous and unnecessary.

The feeling naturally rebounded off NiGHTS. It was wonderful to see him laughing again at all, and especially after that horrible outburst. All of the tension faded away into the distance--it was like a reassurance...that he was doing the right thing.

Reala's crystal faintly throbbed with light as he bent over to rifle through the grocery bag. "There's nothing but fruit in here," he announced, shoving the bag back at him by the ridged edges. "Take it back."

"_What_?! After I already _stole _it?!"

"_Kidding_, kidding," Reala quickly replied, "I kid." He took an apple from the bag and bit into it with a loud, wet crunch.

NiGHTS lowered his eyes, but couldn't help feeling grateful. It was a small miracle that he was now feeling well enough to joke around. "Fruit's good for you," he argued.

Reala pressed his head down to swallow. "Yeah, but you could've gotten at least _one_ non-fruit item. This is all the stuff _you_ like to eat!" He took another bite. "I mwean, you dihn' hafta get meat or anyting. Jus sum crakkas woulda been nice."

"Don't talk with your mouth full," NiGHTS told him. Then froze.

Reala only stared at him, the bulge in his cheek pulsing in and out.

NiGHTS fixed his wide eyes on it. "You're...you're chewing."

Now Reala froze, in mid-chew. "I am." Slowly, carefully, he bit into the lump of apple in his mouth again. It felt completely natural. He chewed a bit more, and swallowed.

"You've remembered your table manners!" NiGHTS cried, throwing his arms around him. "Well...most of them, anyway."

"Well, I do have these nice, sharp teeth," Reala considered. "I might as well use them for something...besides biting your nose off, of course"

NiGHTS glanced up at him, confused. "But...I don't have a nose."

"Exactly."

"What?!"

And so, it went on, just the same as always. A merciful moment of calm after the flash lightning storm. But still, even as they lightly poked each other back and forth, each word was layered with the heavy weight...that this would probably be one of the very last times.

(-)

And then three days later, Reala was no longer able to sit up on his own. NiGHTS propped him up with the bed's two pillows when he was awake...but that was only about six hours of the day now. At least, during the last two days, Tiana and her mother had re-stocked the kitchen, so he could get a few things to eat now and then. Not that it helped much.

Tiana herself was still living out in the parlor, though she did come into her room a few times, just to go on her computer for a little while. She couldn't explain why she felt this way, why she didn't want to be around him. She just couldn't bear seeing him like this. And then, there was the fact that NiGHTS was always there with him.

Even during the short half-hour she'd spent on the computer, she'd seen it. Out of the corner of her eye, she'd seen NiGHTS leaning over Reala's sleeping form, at the head of her bed, propping his heavy head up on his knees. And he'd been..._fondling_ him...massaging his shoulders, caressing his fleshy horns, wrapping his arms around the bottom of his head. And then...just when he'd been about to pull away, he'd tilted his head further in...and planted a little kiss on his forehead. Tiana had left as soon as she had the chance.

And so, the next day, she finally decided that she had to ask. Reala was sleeping, as usual, and NiGHTS was seated on the edge of the bed, beside him. His round indigo eyes turned up when she marched into the room, awed.

Tiana's hands trembled at her sides. But she had to say it. She had to know...before she let this go on any further. It was going to torture her forever if she didn't say it. "A-Are you..." her voice was louder and bolder than she had imagined, though it still trembled within her throat. "...Are you in love?!"

NiGHTS's deer eyes stared back at her. He pressed his gloved hands down into the mattress. "...In _love_?" he finally spoke. "With _who_?"

Tiana's eyes automatically drifted over to the peacefully unconscious Reala. _Isn't it obvious? _

NiGHTS followed her gaze, stunned. "...With _Ree_?!" He burst into laughter. "Kyahahahahahaha! Aheeheehee! Ohmygosh, no!"

Tiana was instantly relieved...though she couldn't help feeling a little insulted. "Gee, sorry for asking." She tucked her hands behind her back. "I know you guys are brothers, but..."

"Hee hee..." NiGHTS forced himself upright again, swiping a tear away with one finger. "No, no, it's fine. I can...understand why you might be confused. It's a really good question, actually."

Tiana looked down to the rug and waited for him to continue.

"Um...well, you see, Ree and I aren't _actually_ brothers, like how you think of brothers," he began. "We weren't 'born', as in, we have no parents. But I know that however it happened, we came into existence together at the same time, in the same place."

_So...that would excuse it?_ Tiana thought. _But...but he already said no. So then..._

"And...there's a huge difference between loving somebody and being in love with them. If you'd asked me 'do I love him?', then yes, I do. I love him dearly. But I'm not 'in love' with him."

"Y-yeah..." Tiana uneasily replied. "I get that. It's the same as if I said I love my mom. But...but you two...you do other things that people with that kind of love don't normally do. Like...sleeping next to each other, taking baths together, and I...saw you kiss him yesterday."

NiGHTS lowered his head, heaving a sigh. "Yeah...it's really difficult to try to explain it to you. I'm not sure if a human _can _ever understand, but...I'll try anyway."

Tiana fell completely silent, watching Reala's chest fluctuating. This was something very special, and she needed to pay very close attention.

NiGHTS took a deep breath. "Ree and I are...soul mates? No, no, that sounds romantic. Life partners? No, now that makes it sound like we're married! Jeez! Um...uh...we're just connected, in a special way. It's part of the Balance, you know?"

Tiana frowned. Reala had once mentioned "the Balance" before, as if it was just something everyone knew about. She had no idea what it was, though she could guess that it had something to do with the equilibrium between the Dreaming World and Waking World. But now didn't seem like the best time to ask for an explanation for that as well, since NiGHTS seemed to be struggling so much.

"It's...a spiritual connection. Both of us have no gender, you know. So the love is in our souls. When Ree lost his soul, he also lost his love for me, and so I've been trying to get it to come back to him. It's like we need each other...it'd be really lonely if I was the one single creature in the universe of my own kind."

Tiana's own forehead began to tighten just thinking about it. Being truly, completely unique...completely alone.

A tiny smile quivered onto NiGHTS's lips. "I know you saw me kiss him. But it would always be on the forehead...or the cheek, maybe. I would never want to kiss him on the lips." He shivered, imagining it. "That's like...kissing your best friend since childhood. Or a clone of yourself. Eeeyick..."

Tiana giggled. There was no way she could completely comprehend the situation...but at least now, she thought she understood just a bit of what the feeling was. The need not to be alone. To have someone else close to you, who might be able to understand. To have a partner in the world.

"Is that why you've been avoiding us like the plague?"

Tiana froze. He'd noticed. How could she explain it to him? It always felt so guilty, not wanting to see a sick friend. It seemed cruel. "W-Well, you're always together in here," she uneasily began. "And I didn't want to interrupt."

"He misses you," NiGHTS told her, softly. "He'd never say it, of course, but I've felt it. He wonders where you are all the time."

Tiana's breath choked back in her throat. Most of all, how was she going to explain it to _Reala_? How do you tell someone you didn't want to see them anymore because you couldn't stand to look at them like this? How could they understand that you didn't really hate them? A sharp knot formed just below her voice box. She wouldn't get much longer to figure it out.

NiGHTS glanced down at Reala, smiled, secretly, and suddenly flew away out the door behind her. Tiana stared after him, wondering what had just happened. And then...Reala's eyes opened.

_Augh! _she then realized in her mind. _He did that on purpose! He _knew_ he was going to wake up, and he purposely left me here alone with him!!_

"Agh..." Reala groaned, when he realized that NiGHTS wasn't there anymore. He wriggled against the bed's backboard, attempting to pull himself up, but he only flopped limply over the pillow again.

Tiana sucked in her breath. She would have to do something. She forced herself to move forward, to the side of the bed, heart pounding within her chest.

He turned his head. "Tiana...?" That voice...she hated that voice. It didn't sound like Reala at all. That weak, whispery, innocent voice. There were deep lines under his eyes, as if they were somehow sinking into his head, as if his face was shriveling up. Now she could definitely tell what NiGHTS had meant by "thinner".

_I can't stand it! _Tiana squeezed her eyes closed, blocking it all out. _I can't... I wish...I wish it was the same as before! I wish everything was back to normal! I wish he'd just glare at me, or make fun of me, or call me an idiot! Anything! Just not this! _

"You're an idiot."

Her eyes slid open again. Reala was staring up at her, darkly, and through the scarred, blackened lids, his eyes were bright with vitality and life.

"You're the...biggest idiot...in the world."

Tiana had never been so happy to hear those words. Immediately, all of the tension within her evaporated and curled away. She smiled. "Even bigger than NiGHTS?"

Reala frowned and had to turn his head away for a moment to think.

"Well...second biggest."

(-)

But just as before, everything only seemed to get worse after that. The stripes on Reala's sensors got even lighter, and his face became paper-white--a clear sign that whatever Nightmare energy had been left in him was completely gone. And even more dishearteningly...he lost his ability to speak. He was conscious now only four hours every day. No matter how much he slept, it was never enough. Each time he went to sleep, there was the looming threat that maybe this time, he wouldn't wake up at all.

"Can't we do _anything_?!" Tiana exclaimed to NiGHTS the first time it had happened. "I know you don't want to tell him about what happened, but this is getting really desperate! I mean, he could _die_ if this keeps up!"

NiGHTS only shook his head, sadly. "It wouldn't really make much of a difference, even if we did tell him. He needs to join with his crystal again. I don't know how he can do that, but I know he'll never achieve it if he's actively _intending _to."

It just wasn't fair. It wasn't right. It didn't make sense. But at least now, they could still communicate.

Though Reala could no longer speak, his face and movements spoke for him. He glared at Tiana whenever he got the chance, and shot baleful looks at NiGHTS. No one could really tell what he was thinking, though, until one night.

NiGHTS was sitting on the other side of the bed this time, near the wall, attending to him during his few waking hours, as usual. Reala's blackened eyes blinked several times against the pillow, and he forced them open wider, his eyelids growing even more deeply ridged.

"Don't fight it," NiGHTS said, leaning over to rest a hand on his forehead. "It's okay. Don't be afraid to rest, if you need to."

Reala's eyes blinked closed. But then...he reached out with one hand...and pushed it against NiGHTS's back.

NiGHTS only had a moment to glance back at in in confusion, before his body was pushed down, leaning closer to the mattress. He looked back into his brother's face.

Reala opened his eyes again and frowned, giving him one last push on the back with all his strength. NiGHTS lowered himself completely onto the mattress beside him, and he let his hand fall away at last, curling it back up in front of him.

_Oh..._ NiGHTS realized. _It _has _been a long time..._ He smiled...but then regretfully held up one finger, in front of his lips. _Just this once._

Reala scowled back...but closed his eyes and tucked himself into the covers again, satisfied.

Always, they were beside each other, though this was the only time NiGHTS actually slept along with him, and progressively, he noticed that something else was beginning to happen to Reala.

He could make a few noises, though he couldn't form them into syllables, and during his sleep, he began to utter strange sounds. At first, it was only a few puffs of breath, like a sigh...but it soon escalated to a soft moaning. The foreign noise pierced into NiGHTS's heart when he first experienced it. He could feel it...immediately, he could tell. His partner was in pain.

Reala moaned and pressed his head into the covers, unconsciously...and when NiGHTS coaxed them away, his face no longer looked like his own. The pure white skin of Reala's face was drawn tight, especially at his forehead, right below where the dark red zig-zag marked the beginning of his sensors. His closed eyelids seemed completely black. He moaned again, softly, his mouth barely open a crack. _Pain..._

Reala had always masked his own pain. He would grind his teeth and bear it out with a grim line. But he was too weak now to resist it. But why had it only come on just now? Just because he was weak? It shouldn't be _painful_.

So NiGHTS began to rub his sensors sometimes while he slept, and whenever he had that horrible look of pain. He would lift his head to rest it in his lap and softly, tenderly run his hands over his long, red, striped sensors. Reala's moans of agony abated, fading into peaceful breaths at the loving touch. This was the only thing that could really make him feel better, and it almost broke NiGHTS's heart sometimes, the way he turned his head, automatically, snuggling against his hands and asking for more. It was the only thing he could do for him.

That's when NiGHTS realized--it couldn't be physical pain. A sensor rub couldn't do anything to make physical pain go away--whatever was wrong had to be something from the inside. Then one day, about two days after it began, it grew particularly potent.

Reala was sleeping, as he always did, NiGHTS sitting near his head...when he suddenly began to shudder and clutch the covers closer. "Nnnnn..." he mumbled, pressing his white face to the equally white pillow, hard lines squeezing his features. "_Nnnnnnn_..."

"R-Ree?" NiGHTS whispered. He automatically removed his gloves and began to reach towards his sensors to comfort him. "Again? What's wrong?"

"_Mm_!" Suddenly, Reala's body flipped, tossing in its sleep and drawing the covers even more tightly. It felt just like their struggle before, when he had denied his help, only this time, he couldn't help it.

"U-Uh...ugh..." Reala shuddered again and flopped onto his back...then rolled away from NiGHTS again, curling up in a ball.

"Hey. Hey, it's alright..." NiGHTS extended his hands, caressing his squishy, soft sensors, soothingly. But this time, there was no change at all. Reala shuddered, wrenching his head in the throes of an unseen agony, small moans escaping his lips. And as much as NiGHTS ran his hands up and down his sensors, pressing his fingers in, warming them between rapidly circling palms, he wasn't calming down at all.

"Reala!" he called, as he desperately scrubbed. "Reala, shhhhhhhh..."

"Ghhh-_ughhhhhhh_!" Reala nearly yelled out, yanking away again. His head felt almost feverish.

And at last, NiGHTS couldn't take it anymore. He shoved his own head down...and finally touched his own sensors to Reala's.

"Huhhh..." He let out his breath, and yet remained perfectly still this time.

"Shhhhh." NiGHTS began to lift his head up and down, awkwardly at first...but it seemed to be working. "Shh, Reala."

He felt his body gradually unclenching next to him, his face melting back into its normal, settled solemnity. "Mmnn-mmss," he mumbled, almost a word. "Mmnn-mmss..."

"Shhhhhh-shhh." NiGHTS continued gently shushing, nuzzling their sensors together...and soon, Reala had returned to his calm and restful slumber.

NiGHTS pulled away and sat for a moment in silence, just looking down at his limp form. And that was when he realized it. _He was in Nightmare_. What else could have caused him so much inner pain while he was sleeping? It was terribly ironic, and in another time and situation, he might have teased him about it...but now, the knowledge only left a cold, empty hole in his heart. _Reala was having a nightmare._

For a while, he could only stare on in stunned silence. But at last, he came to his senses. NiGHTS retrieved his gloves, slipped them back on, and clenched them into fists at his sides. As much as he wished to, he couldn't transfer his own energy to Reala. He couldn't force him into merging with his crystal again, or even prod him up to it. But _this_--now _this _he could do something about.

(-)

The blackness stretched on into infinity in every direction, an unending sea of utter despair and hopelessness. NiGHTS lifted one hand, and his white glove was enfolded in a soft, fuzzy glow, like a computer screen in a dark room. He floated over a dark chasm of nothingness, though it would still be solid, if he decided to land. It looked exactly the same as the unconscious blank space in which they had met after NiGHTS's projected vision had broken down. But this was Nightmare. It was apparent in the suffocating atmosphere of tense, crouching fear. He could feel the anxious apprehensiveness in the very weight of the airy substance he was immersed in.

NiGHTS had waited until the next day, and at the very first sign of Reala's discomfort, he'd bolted from Tiana's house, dashing into the sky, and transporting himself back to the Dreaming World. And as soon as he'd arrived, he'd plunged straight into Nightmare, without even stopping to look at the Dream Gate. Even so, it seemed as if Reala had already passed by this part of the realm, moving on to another stage of his own nightmare.

Nightmare still existed, of course, and it was the same size as before--only now there were much fewer Nightmaren wandering around in its depths. NiGHTS couldn't see any in this area at all, though that didn't make it any less uncomfortable. For a moment, he wondered if he really was in Reala's nightmare after all, or if he'd missed it somehow. He could be thousands of dream-miles away from where his brother was trapped in some unknown agony, and he might never reach him in time.

NiGHTS bolted into the deep blackness, trailing sparkles behind him like a comet, a panic fluttering through his chest. _I left him...I left him all alone to come here... And if I'm in the wrong place... Oh, please, I hope he's here! _He yanked his body into a rapid drill dash, streaming across the infinite lightless sky--until suddenly, something violently smacked into his head, grinding his flight to a halt.

"Ah! What was--" NiGHTS whipped around, searching for the source of the blow, but there was nothing. It almost felt as if it had come from somewhere inside his own head. A flash of light caught the corner of his eyes, and he immediately flipped back towards it.

_This way...it's useless._

NiGHTS gasped. That voice... Not only did it sound horrifically familiar, but it instantly had some kind of deep, personal effect on him. It stabbed straight down, into his heart--as if this was the voice of his own heart, speaking to him.

_This is the best you can do._

He shook himself. _No, no it's not _me_...this is _Reala's _nightmare. This is how _he_ felt when this happened. Whatever this is..._ Still, it was incredibly uncomfortable, and even though he could imagine that the voice was speaking to Reala, it still felt as if it was speaking only to him.

_This way...it's useless. You were unable to get the job done last time. So this is the best you can do. _

_It is? _NiGHTS thought. He wanted to do something more. He wanted to...make the voice happy...pleased and grateful for him. Because it felt so close...like family...a part of him.

_No. I realize now. This way...it's useless. You were unable to get the job done last time, so why should this time be any different? You are aligned with my own essence--no greater than any small minion I could conjure from the darkness with my own hands. I should have realized it earlier. You are useless to me. _

_Useless...? _NiGHTS's soul felt as if it was sinking...down into the endless pit below him. It was...sore and achy. _I'm useless? I...have no worth...to you? No worth...at all? _

_However, I see that re-creating you wasn't an entire waste. There _is _one special thing that you can do for me--and it may be much more effective to send you on this mission than to try it myself. _

_What is it?!_ NiGHTS immediately thought. _I'll do anything! I'm not useless--and I'll prove it to you! _

_Bring NiGHTS to me. _

_What...?_

_Your mission...is to capture NiGHTS, and bring him to me. With NiGHTS under my control--the opposing essence--the Dreaming World is mine. That will be your most important duty, Reala. You only duty. This is the best you can do. _

NiGHTS's heart was trembling inside now--with sheer disappointment, shame, and rage. _He...he wants NiGHTS. Not me. I'm not NiGHTS. He values him...more than me. I'm not good enough. I'm not strong enough. I'm not special...valuable...I'm just worthless...useless... Not like NiGHTS... NiGHTS... _NiGHTS_..._

The light burst again before his eyes--and in it flashed a giant, robed figure, six hands and eyeballs staring down at him, long, deadly jagged spikes protruding from its head.

His breath punched out of him. _Wizeman! _And NiGHTS was himself again.

The fabric of Nightmare tugged and flickered around him, shifting and rearranging itself. But NiGHTS didn't see any of it. He was just too utterly stunned.

"Ree...?" The awful, achy soreness in his heart was back in full force, as the rage melted away. He tried to stop the tears from spilling out over his face. "Ree... It's not like that. You're not useless...you're not worthless...or weaker...or anything! I...I didn't know...I never knew..."

"And why should I believe you?"

NiGHTS's gathering tears froze in place under his eyes. His eyes themselves froze, the long lashes of his eyelids standing straight up. That voice... The world of Nightmare had formed itself into a blank room, with two tall, thin figures standing in the middle. NiGHTS carefully turned his head--and shot out of the room, pressing himself to the wall just beside the doorway. His red-jeweled chest heaved.

_Ohmygosh. Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, that was so close... _He had just nearly broken one of the few quintessential laws of the Dreaming World--your physical self should never have contact with your dream-self. Of course, he'd already bent that rule a little for Reala's vision, but _this _was something entirely different--a dream-spectre created by an agent other than himself. _Of _himself.

Slowly, carefully, NiGHTS chanced to peek around the edge of the doorcasing. At last, there was Reala--looking perfectly healthy again, and standing firmly on his own two legs. In the Dreaming World, of course, physical ailments were of no consequence. He held something cupped in his hands, and although NiGHTS rejoiced in his heart just at the sight of him, he felt that there was something odd about it. His face was scrunched, slightly--anxious and confused.

"Isn't this enough? That I'm even _allowing _you to... It's the deepest promise I can even offer! And you still refuse it?!"

"A promise means nothing!" NiGHTS saw his own back bend in, his own voice calling out, nearly unrecognizable in its fury. "_It doesn't matter_! _Nothing_ can ever make up for it! _Nothing _can ever erase all of it--all the pain you put me through! Everything you did to me! I won't just forget it!"

"I know..." Reala's own voice was softer now, though his grave expression remained. "I know...but it's different now. I know more...I understand more. I can be better prepared... I won't do that again--"

"_No_!!" NiGHTS's dream-self shrieked, slamming his gloved hands against the bases of his sensors. "_Lies_! It's all _lies_! It doesn't matter--you'll just turn on me again! You'll hurt me, you'll destroy me, no matter what, you'll just leave me again, and I'll be forced to do everything _all over again_, just like always! I can't stand it!! Just--just _go away_!"

Reala stood firmly, bearing through the outburst, though NiGHTS thought he noticed him tremble just a tiny bit. His own heart was racing--with shock, worry, sorrow, and concern. _This _was what had caused Reala so much pain?

"NiGHTS..." When the Nightmare-reflection of him at last settled down, trembling and clutching his sensors, Reala spoke again. His face was almost peaceful...resigned. "Please, NiGHTS..."

The real NiGHTS felt his heart quiver...as Reala finally extended his arms towards his dream-self, revealing the object in his hands. The pointed blue crystal, glowing softly and warmly from within. It reflected off the whiteness of his hands, deep and mysterious. He offered it up to him, openly. The deepest promise.

NiGHTS heard it in his own mind--Reala's agonized half-scream, his head twisting this way and that. madly attempting to abate it. The pain of his Nightmare.

The NiGHTS figure began to uncurl himself again. His hands dropped from his head, his back folded straight...and his sharp eyes rested on the small, glowing crystal in Reala's hands.

All at once, NiGHTS knew. NiGHTS knew what would happen next. He saw his own gloved hand fitting around that jewel...tearing it away from him...leaving his body cold and spiritless...smashing it...into a million tiny fragments. So he would never have to hurt again. That scream...that horrible, horrible scream. It was too terrible. It was too terrible to even name. He couldn't just stand here and watch it--when he _was _the nightmare. He had to do something! Anything! He just had to stop this!

"NO!" NiGHTS burst from his position in the doorway, slamming himself to a stop just inches away, one hand shot out towards the crystal. The other NiGHTS immediately froze...and wisped away as if he had been nothing but a cloud of multicolored smoke.

Reala's wide eyes glowed electric blue in the darkness, echoing the soft light of the crystal in his hands.

Tears poured down NiGHTS's cheeks, though he didn't even feel them. All of his feelings, thoughts, and reasons spun and churned inside of him, while his body stood paralyzed. He'd just broken one of his own most important rules. But he didn't even care. All that mattered was the real figure of his bonded partner standing before him right now.

His voice was pleading, breathless. "...I'll take that risk."

Neither moved for a few otherworldly seconds, not even daring to breathe. Reala carefully retracted his arms, bringing his hands up close to his chest. His stunned expression was slowly evolving...his face darkening, eyes narrowing, brow knitting together. NiGHTS couldn't move. Their eyes met again...and he knew.

With a heart-rending shatter, Reala turned, dropping the crystal, destroying it...and fading away into the endless cold shadow of Nightmare.

NiGHTS stood still, voiceless, one hand still extended, the tears drying and sticking to his round cheeks. At last, he began to feel something--air rushing over him, pressing fiercely against him, forcing him backwards. With a final blast of chilling air, his body flung across the expanse behind him. A light burst through the cracks of his closed eyelids...just before his back slammed hard into something cool and densely solid.

"NiGHTS! NiGHTS, ohmygoodness!" A voice fluttered out somewhere to his right, though it felt as if it was calling from the far end of a tube. "What happened?! Are you okay?! I can't believe it! I simply can't believe it! You shouldn't have been in there! How did you _get _in there?! I wouldn't dare even attempt it if I were you..."

_Reala. _NiGHTS could still feel his presence. And all at once, his senses came back to him.

"_Reala_!" He shot up to his knees, throwing himself in the direction of the essence, arms tossed up for support. But he was too late.

Before him stood a tall door, shining metallic red, its stairs and railings twisted with intricate swirling designs of silver. Its silvery platinum frame was carved with several branching circular symbols, though the center design was indescernable. It faded away, bleeding into the dark forest trees behind it, until it was gone, leaving no trace that it ever had existed.

NiGHTS's body was numb once again. He went limp, slipping down, his legs spreading out around him. His arms dropped between his tiny bent knees. His eyes remained permanently fastened to that spot.

At last, Owl moved in a little closer, beating his wings close near his shoulder. He wanted to do everything he could...to comfort him somehow. "That was the Forbidden Nightopia," he spoke, as if repeating the explanation would somehow anchor him. "The Nightopia which no one is ever supposed to enter...that appears here in the Dream Gate from time to time and disappears again at its own will. The Nightopia with no Visitor. This is the first time I've seen it in quite a while. How did you come to be _inside _of it?"

NiGHTS couldn't answer. There was only one word he could say right now. "...Reala..."

"Reala?" Owl cried, floating back a little. "So it was _him_? What did that dirty scoundrel do to you?!"

NiGHTS finally turned his head...as if noticing Owl for the very first time. He lifted his arms...and folded them around the puffy brown bird, bringing him close...pressing him to the warm crystal on his chest. They fell silent together...peaceful... And NiGHTS held him tightly and firmly, his arms squishing in on the soft feathers...as if he'd never let go again.

(-)

That face was the same. It might have been shriveled now...grey and drawn...but it was the same. Reala's blue eyes pierced back up at him with the same electric-blue light they had shone in the depths of Nightmare. Alive and sparking with energy, even as his body failed. Now they were churning with anger and disapproval.

NiGHTS couldn't actually read the words straight out of his mind...but he could feel his general mood and basic train of thought. _I thought I told you not to do that again. _

NiGHTS lowered his head, sliding his eyes away. "I know..."

_But you did it anyway. Even when I specifically told you not to. _

"I know, I know..."

_You violated my privacy. Without even trying to ask me first. With no regard for my own feelings. I'm not _completely_ helpless and mute, you know. _

"I know!" NiGHTS finally burst out, forcing his eyes back up to meet Reala's. "But I was just...trying to help you. I couldn't just sit here and watch you suffering in Nightmare, when I knew I could do something about it! You have to understand that! It was torture..."

Reala's eyes flashed. _You went inside the Forbidden Nightopia! Are you insane?! You could have destroyed every extraneous creature in your own realm! And just for one tiny, insignificant little nightmare! _Why _did you do that?! _

"I was worried about you!" NiGHTS objected. "It doesn't matter what you think--if it was causing you so much pain, it wasn't just an insignificant little nightmare."

He sighed, settling down into his own thoughts again. _He really...thought that way about me? About himself? That he was inferior somehow? That I wouldn't accept him? I wouldn't forgive him? That I would completely reject him?_

He heard Reala sigh a little bit as well. Glancing up, NiGHTS could see now that his face had changed. He looked simply...tired this time. Defeated. There was nothing he could do about it. NiGHTS knew now, and if he thought less of him because of it, there was no way he could change his mind. It wasn't worth the struggle anymore.

"Reala..." NiGHTS gently spoke again, pushing his body a little further forward. "That's not true. You know it."

But he woudn't answer. He closed his eyes, at last, his waking energy expended. But this time, when he drifted off to sleep, his countenance was entirely calm...still and peaceful. The Forbidden Nightopia was no longer steeped in the darkness of Nightmare, and he could rest securely once again.

Carefully, soundlessly, NiGHTS slipped around the sleeping form of his spiritual brother, once again lifting his head into his lap. He watched the blue-jeweled chest softly pulsing below his knees and felt the warm, precious life of this mysterious creature against him. So close and yet so very strange and distant.

Despite their unique connection, he would never know everything there was to know about him...but even so, he thought he felt something solidifying between them in that quiet moment. The presence of their bond was now stronger than he had ever felt it before...and made even deeper by the threatening shadow of death, loss, and separation.

NiGHTS was stroking his sensors again, as they curled around his waist. But that wasn't enough to express his feelings right now. He cupped his hands under the fleshy horns and slowly began to bend in around them. He brought his face down close...closer...and tenderly pressed his lips over the top of his head.

"I love you, Reala."

(-)

There just didn't seem to be any way out of it. Reala was going to die. None of them had figured out how he was supposed to merge with his soul again, and NiGHTS now seriously doubted if he was even capable of it anymore.

"But...but what about my ideya?!" Tiana desperately protested. "That would give him enough energy, wouldn't it?!"

"It would be the wrong kind of energy," NiGHTS gravely told her. "Nightmare energy. To take the energy of a human's ideya is a Nightmaren function."

And so, that evening, Tiana found herself mustering her courage to try to say her final good-byes.

Her own room felt so cold and cheerless as she stepped into it. But she had to do this. She felt that it was her duty. After NiGHTS, she was the closest being to him now...and after her mother, he was the closest to her.

Tiana stepped beside her bed, her slipper soundlessly pressing into the aqua carpet. Reala's face was so pale, his deathly head nestled over her pillow...only the folded arms and the coffin lid were missing.

_His soul..._ Tiana thought. _The problem is with his soul...after that boy destroyed it. And I could have too. _She slowly brought her hand forward, resting it over the solid edge of his crystal, through the covers. _I wish I could help...heal it. _

A thick, spiky ball was building in the back of her throat now, despite her efforts to constrain it. Sure, Reala might not have been a true friend to her...but he'd been there. He'd been the first being she could speak her mind to, who'd been honest with her, who'd brought a bit of excitement and wonder into her life...who had opened her mind to the wondrous world surrounding her. And though they'd never gotten to be the kind of friends she had hoped to be, that special moment kept hovering in her mind...of when he had smiled at her.

Tiana couldn't stop it anymore--she just gave up and let the tears roll freely down her cheeks. She could never have imagined that she'd one day be crying over _him_--but here she was. All of those times...those other casual moments of connection. Even for a few moments...sharing a spirit with him. Tiana gasped through her tears, her breath coming back out in ragged little sobs. She pressed her hands to her eyes, just to block the image out for a moment. She had so much more she wanted to do...to know and to say... She had to get her final ideya yet. She'd wanted to complete her set...to give something back to him. She didn't want to say good-bye. She _couldn't_ say good-bye. Not now. Not like _this_...

And as Tiana again drowned in her tears, she felt something bump against her elbow. She was getting too close to the edge of the bed, she thought. But it came again. This time a little harder.

Tiana at last opened her blurred eyes, lowering her hands just an inch...to see Reala, awake, facing her now...and with one pale, spidery hand curled into a loose fist.

Tiana only stared at him in wonder, at first surprised to actually find him still alive. Then, fresh tears began to flow over her cheeks again, warmly. "R-R-Ree...R-Ree...Reeah..."

His fist shot out, smacking the end of her elbow again.

She just sniffled.

_Nudge. Nudge. _

_"Stop that." _

And so she did. The tears clotted over her cheeks while the constricting emotions in her chest gradually leveled out again, though she wasn't even sure why at first.

Reala retracted his fist once he was sure she was finished and simply frowned back up at her. _"You're an idiot." _

And Tiana found herself bursting into weak, bubbling, bittersweet laughter.

(-)

NiGHTS had been trying to prepare himslf for days, though there was no way on earth that he could ever prepare himself for the passing away of his own other half. He knew that from then on, no mater what happened, there would always be a great bottomless pit in the center of his soul--something missing, something broken that could never be fixed. Like severing the entire right side of his body.

During these last two days, he'd actually vowed to stay away from the room as much as possible--both to distance himself from the situation just a tiny bit and to allow Tiana as much time with him as she needed. But it was entirely impossible.

NiGHTS had never in his life considered the possibility of Reala actually dying...except maybe when he had been forced to fight him the first time. It just couldn't happen. They were supposed to be immortal...they were supposed to go on to the end of time together. But age was the only thing they were immune to.

It was early in the afternoon, not too long after Tiana had gotten home from school. She'd just gone in to see him again, while NiGHTS forced himself to stay seated in the air above the coffee table, reading the booklets of some of her CD's. He'd probably play the music himself, he decided. But would he be _able _to?

For that matter, if Reala really did die, what would happen to the Balance? Wouldn't that mean it would be tipped to his own side? That the Voidables would eventually take over the Waking World? That the Waking World would cease to exist altogether, and all life would become trapped within the Dreaming World forever? Or...would a new guardian of the Waking World be "born"? Would NiGHTS have to die too? Well...it wouldn't be so bad, if he could die with him...

Suddenly, Tiana came rushing down the hallway again, into the parlor, completely grasping his attention. Her face was white with shock, her dark blue off-the-shoulder dress swishing around her ankles as she jerked to a halt.

NiGHTS literally flew to her side. "What?!" he asked, anxiously. "What is it?!"

"I-It's Reala..." she began, not even believing the words that were coming out of her mouth.

"What happened?!" NiGHTS demanded, though he steeled his heart for the impact--tried to project himself away from his body, this moment in time, these horrible words, this pronouncement of doom... But he would never have guessed the words that seeped out of her next.

"He's _gone_."


	10. The Void

At long last, the much-delayed chapter 10! I won't even attempt to account for my lost time, but let's just say that school, holidays, and general laziness all were a factor. What did I say in the beginning about long, unexplainable hiatuses?

I want to give official special thank-yous to both shokogoddess11/shokokchan and KirbsterMK/LilStarcon for the wonderful fanart! It makes me so happy that I've done a good enough job for people to want to draw out some of my creations. I love all of it, and it means a lot to me. PLUS I would also like to thank that anonymous person for that gigantic and wonderful review, which provided much motivation.

Oh, gosh, so much has happened. Now I have some adorable commission-made plushies of NiGHTS and Reala sitting here staring at me with their big painted eyes, and also lots of other projects I'm working on. But I swear, I'll find time to finish this story, eventually!

I feel like this chapter isn't up to par, but I've felt like that with the past three or so chapters anyway. But the second half in particular seems lacking, which is a shame. I just don't feel like trying to re-write it now, because I've worked really hard the past couple of days to get it done. Please forgive the rather lackluster ending parts.

If anyone was wondering where the Voidables had gone, they're back in full force now. Actually, that's one thing I would critique about my own story--that the Voidables aren't very threatening and just seem to wait around for Reala and Tiana to come defeat them. If this was something I could actually publish for real, I would definitely want to revise that, along with Tiana's disappearing former friends.

It kind of seems like the thing with NiGHTS is brushed off too easily and left unresolved...and it definitely is. That's why there's another chapter.

I know. He has tentacles instead of hands. And that's it. Clean your minds!!!

And this is, of course, the second-to-last chapter. I have no idea when the real last chapter will be, but hopefully sooner than the time it took me to write this one, since there will be no more holidays, and less schoolwork to get in the way.

Once again! NiGHTS, Reala, exc. belong to Sonic Team! I own Tiana, the Voidables, and introducing Illuzius!

(-)

Chapter 10: The Void

NiGHTS could only goggle at her like a blue-eyed goldfish, his mouth in a fixed "O" of speechlessness. "_Gone_?" he finally repeated. "What do you mean, 'gone'?!"

"I-I mean he's _gone_!" Tiana cried, waving her arms out. "He's not there! He's missing! He disappeared! He vanished!" Her arms dropped back down at her sides, fists curling under her long blue sleeves. "D-Did he...did he..."

"No." NiGHTS snapped into a grave, solid frown. "No, he would have--left a body." His teeth clenched after the awkward phrase. "He wouldn't have just disappeared into thin air!"

He swept Tiana aside, gliding down the hallway to her room, his life force pounding against his chest. _But...but he couldn't have just gotten up and walked off somewhere. He couldn't even sit up, much less stand! How could he have...?! _But it was true.

NiGHTS halted, suspended over the threshold. It was all too plain. There was Tiana's bed, right in front of him--empty, the puffy blue quilt and clean white sheets rumpled back like a chocolate wrapper. "..._Ree_?!" he called, as if hoping Reala was still in the room, only playing a game of hide-and-seek. Perhaps he had just fallen out of bed, and crawled underneath it, for whatever convoluted notions he'd gotten into his head now. But there was nothing. No mumbled groan, rustle of movement, or red-and-white body part revealed itself. He was gone.

Tiana silently stepped into the doorway behind him, clutching one hand to her mouth. "Why...? How...? Where...?"

NiGHTS floated towards the bed, hoping to find some clue in the only trace Reala had left behind. He fingered the edge of Tiana's bedsheets, feeling for the warmth left from his body, some sensation that he might be able to pick up on. And it slowly came to him. "Maybe...maybe he'd been storing it."

"What?" Tiana asked, growing bolder and taking a step back into her own transfigured room.

"The energy," NiGHTS finally clarified. "We have a small cavity inside our bodies for storing energy--kind of like a camel's hump, only you can't see it. And while the energy he got from sleeping would eventually taper off, I thought it was depleting kind of fast. Maybe he was...storing it up...to make some kind of last-ditch, desperate effort..."

Tiana's chest clenched. _He was planning to leave? All this time, when I felt so bad for him...he was planning to just leave us? _

A ray of sunlight filtered through the room, making it strangely holy and unreal. NiGHTS turned his head...and noticed it, at last. The window was open. The thin green curtains floated in the gentle breeze. He immediately drifted to the windowsill, the pane pulled all the way up, fully opening the large square-shaped hole in the side of the house. He'd _flown_?

NiGHTS shoved his head out of that hole, staring down to the miniature dirt driveway far below, in a panic. If Reala had tried to fly, and then fell from this height... Sure guardians were rubbery, and they had no bones to break, but it would still bruise him up pretty badly. And in his state, he couldn't afford to be injured again. But there was no sign of a long-limbed red body lying splattered against the ground.

"H-He flew?" Tiana asked, echoing the questions in NiGHTS's mind. NiGHTS nodded. It had to be--there was no other way. But where had he flown to? He couldn't have gone far... Stored energy wouldn't be enough to sustain an extended flight. And for that matter, what had he been planning to do out in the Waking World...on his own...with only a small store of energy to live on?

NiGHTS hovered, his hands pressed to the inner windowsill. He was getting a bad feeling about all of this. A very, very bad feeling... The spot in his mind went black--deep, dark, and infinite. "Let's go." He whirled around to Tiana, who was now only a few feet behind him. "We need to find him. Right now!"

(-)

His body shuddered. The sparkles blinked out. He sputtered up and down for a moment before plopping onto unsteady feet. He only barely managed to keep his balance. Splotched yellow film bled across Reala's vision, and he had to lower his head for a moment, panting, before it gradually wore away.

A store. He was near a small shopping plaza. The sidewalk.

He could feel his knees trembling underneath him as his body slowly began to give out again. Why had he even done this? What had he hoped to accomplish? It was only just going to happen again. There was no way out. Was he really so helpless? Was it really so futile? What had _happened _to him?!

Reala couldn't even think, as he lifted his body again. He felt as light and as fragile as if he was balanced precariously on the edge of a wire. At any moment, he might tumble to his doom. His stick-thin arms spread out like feeble imitations of wings, pawing the air. The world was fading in and out again--there, and then not, there...and then not... Like a heartbeat.

_Energy..._ It was the only word in Reala's dazed, half-conscious mind, as if all of his body was conspiring towards that single purpose. _I need...energy. Any energy. Just...energy. Energy..._

And then, he could see it. Light. Small globes of light, dancing up and down the street, carrying shopping bags, holding smaller globes of light by the hand. Swirling around him. Passing by him without a second thought. Lights everywhere. A force. A power. They were taunting him, dancing by, encircling him, watching his own life force wither and die away while they skipped joyfully, easily past, full of life and vitality. Full of energy.

One of Reala's hands slipped forward, towards them...just wanting to touch them...to feel their life and power...to share some of it. _Energy... Please...energy..._ But they were hovering just out of his reach. Something was trying to yank his arm back, trying to stop him from reaching them. But that force was gradually diminishing, as the rest of his body faded.

"Don't..." it whispered. "You shouldn't... You can't..." Then it died.

The need, the desperate, overbearing, overwhelming, crushing need overrided everything else. There was only one thing in the world he needed right now. And it was all around him. _Energy... I need...energy..._

His arm wavered forward, reaching out desperately towards those warm, glowing orbs, trembling dangerously with the effort...leaning over the edge of the high wire... _I need...power... _And at last, the palm of his skeletal, white claw-hand fitted over one of those globes of pure, white glowing energy.

It felt as if beams of solid metal shot down into his arms...steadying them...holding them up...supporting them. The wire underneath him was now a thick plank of wood. Solidifying. The wavering static of the world faded closer in. It felt...better. For the first time in almost a month, he felt..._better_.

A soft thud came from somewhere close to him. Then other strange noises, from the far end of a tunnel.

Reala lifted his head. It felt natural...light, yet with a certain organic weight. He was a being again--not a jellyfish, wobbling somewhere above the misty clouds. Why stop this process now?

The lights were beginning to move together now, in a pattern. Some fled away, but most began to draw closer towards him, congregating, crowding, pushing...asking to be of service. So Reala lifted both his hands towards another one...and obliged.

The wooden plank was now a platform. The bars of iron his arms. His legs sturdy trunks. His chest settled. He closed his eyes and felt the energy coursing through his body, exhilaration and excitement sparking after it, weaving through every fiber of his being. The energy! The power! It was his now...again...at last. He didn't have to be that weak, useless, helpless creature shivering in the shadows anymore. He had the power--the authority--the energy he had missed. And now there was only one thing he wanted.

_More!_ A grin of sparking excitement broke over his face--such as he hadn't felt in months. _More! _he cried. _More! Yes, I need more!!!_

The lights throbbing with power were scattering quickly now, scurrying away in all directions, squeezing, blinking, flying, smashing against each other in desperation.

Reala grinned at them. _Trying to get away from me now? _He dashed forward with a swiftness he had forgotten, seizing one of them in his hand. It faded. Leaping up into the air, he dove forward, slashing through three at a time. They blinked out around him left and right. Shining, pulsing, throbbing, thudding, screaming, tearing, ripping, shredding... Screaming. Screaming. The sound thrilled him to the core. _Scream! _he called. _Scream for me! Who's helpless now?! Who's laughing now?! That's right! Heh...Heheheheheheheheheh!!!_

Out of the corner of his eye, Reala noticed something else. Another orb--bigger and shinier than all the rest, just sitting obliviously against a chair not too far away. It was a challenge. A great enemy. A tremendous force rising up against it. It had to be eliminated!

Reala shot towards it, a bullet speeding through the air. A sharp crashing noise burst out around him--then a mouse's squeak. The light began to move. But before it could get anywhere, Reala clamped his hands over it...squeezing out its life, underneath two strong blue, ripping talons. He pressed all of his force into it, crushing the giant orb of light with his own force. It bent, broken, toppling out of its chair. Dead. A half-colored canvas clattered against the concrete ground, tearing itself in two.

The swell of victory surged within Reala's chest, poking at something he couldn't recognize. He zoomed back out, easily snatching up another orb in his hands...only this time he pressed it to his mouth, sucking out its very life force, draining it of everything it was composed of, savagely tearing into it with fanglike teeth, lustfully, ravenously stealing away its own lifeblood, before throwing it coldly to the ground, a limp, dry, useless rag.

Reala stood a moment, staring down into dead light, one fist raised in utter domination. Something warm was licking at his feet. The screams continued to echo in a bubble over his red-and-black striped sensors. This was it. _This _was the power he'd needed--the power he'd missed, the power he _craved_. _He _was their master--_he _was their superior. Why should he be anything less?!

A new noise was beginning to call, feebly, amidst the roar of nothingness. But it was too far away to make out. Reala lowered his fist at last. He felt compelled to at least figure out what this assailing force was--if it was another foolish challenger. He lowered his head.

"REALA!!!" NiGHTS screamed, Tiana dashing underneath him, hair rippling behind her like a flag. But it was too late.

A black, gooey substance grew and bubbled up around Reala's ankles--a giant puddle, a miniature lake, stretching to the ends of the parking lot. Someone was calling his name. Someone he knew. Someone who was important to him.

Slowly...tentatively...Reala began to turn his head. To see who it was. And it struck.

A massive black, snakelike tentacle burst from the lake at his feet, lashing around him, slapping its strong, thick cords tightly around his knees.

"_Reala_!!!" NiGHTS called again, flipping his body to a halt, Tiana tumbling forward to her knees under him, staring with white eyes. There was no time.

Reala's body lurched to the side as another tentacle squeezed around the end of his arm, yanking it out, bent close to his face. His teeth gritted against the overbearing force, grappling with it and trying to tear it away. His eyes popped open. And stared. The arm in front of him was blue...thick, and rippling with muscular mounds. Torn white fabric fluttered forlornly around it. Yet this strength was ineffective on the choking tentacles.

More of them burst upwards with breathtaking force, giant closed bulbs of poison at their ends. They whipped around Reala, binding him tight, squeezing his arms to his chest, his ankles into a cross, his head down into his shoulders, his sensors to the back of his head. Every inch of him seemed engulfed in these oppressive binds. And at last, his face had melted...he was shocked...appalled...confused...and terrified. And then, he began to sink.

"Reala!" NiGHTS called, twitching forward in alarm, but he froze again an instant later. There was nothing he could do now.

The tentacles dragged Reala down...pulling him...reeling him into the infinite black puddle. And he disappeared...slowly...consumed by their depths. Until at last, he disappeared completely. The last tip of one of the tentacles' bulbs sank into the ground. And all was silent.

The ends of NiGHTS's feet bobbed up and down as he hung suspended in the air, staring into the endless black lake, his face blank and paling. Tiana stretched her arms out in front of her, fingering the rough grains of the sidewalk, her dress draped around her legs. Tears glistened at the edges of her round eyes, her heart frozen in her chest.

Everyone had immediately fled the scene, leaving her and NiGHTS utterly alone...with an enormous lake of black that only they could see. The bodies were sprawled across the sidewalk...not exactly dead yet, but paralyzed. Stupefied. Empty. Soulless. Perhaps it would have been better if they really had died. A former painter lied against the shattered glass window of his studio, lifeless. The destruction...the horror...it was back. All of it. Right before her eyes...right from underneath her.

Tiana felt the fire flare up in her chest--pumping out to every part of her body, filling her with anger, despair, shame, and confusion. "He...he killed them!" her mouth gnashed over the pointed syllables. "He k-killed them! After...after everything! He...he betrayed us! He _betrayed _us! After _everything_!!!"

Her voice died in her throat, and her face fell down into her hands, the tears spilling over her cheeks, trickling through her fingers. _And I trusted him. I thought I knew him. I thought he cared about me. I thought he was a good person. I cared about him. I didn't want him to die... When all that time, he was just planning to leave. He was planning to turn on me. He was planning to...do _this_. _

Tiana's heart felt torn, ripped up and destroyed. This is why she couldn't have friends. Why she shouldn't ever trust anyone. It was too dangerous. She had offered her tender, glittering heart out to another being for the first time in years...only to have it slashed, torn, bitten to pieces, and then tossed back into her own face, leaving her to try to paste the shreds back together again. This always happened. This always, always happened. And she was a fool for letting it happen.

"I'm...an idiot..." she mumbled. "I _am_...an idiot."

NiGHTS remained silent. He'd heard her every word, of course, but he couldn't say anything. Emotions raged through his crystalline heart for a moment, before they settled, at last. He knew it. He couldn't forget. He would never allow himself to forget.

He lowered himself from the sky, soft purple booted feet pressing against the sidewalk next to her, without a sound. "...Are you going to give up now?"

Tiana's tearstained cheeks turned towards him. A firm stoicism gripped his warm face. Hard and firm as a brick wall. All of the pain he'd been through...everything he'd been forced to endure, alone, without anywhere to turn... He knew it was true. He knew it was real. It _had _to be real.

"...Well, I'm not. I'm not giving up. No matter what happens. I'm _never _giving up!!!"

NiGHTS clenched his hands to his collar, head jerked down to the bottomless inky blackness, in challenge. "...I'm never giving up."

_The Void_, Tiana realized, following his gaze. _It's the Void...the same realm we fought against...the evil realm..._ Her eyes slid over toward the soulless bodies...then back to the enormous black portal to the Void.

NiGHTS hovered to its mirky edge, hands pressed to his chest. He flipped towards her, a small spot of living color against a shadowed army of immeasurable magnitude, under the darkening sky. "Would you rather he had died?"

Tiana couldn't speak. Her voice dried up in her mouth, as the tears dried on her face. _No_, she realized. _I didn't want him to die...and I _still _don't want him to die. I...I don't know. I wanted him to die before. I turned on him. He turned on me. I can't...just walk away. _She stood up, carefully, balancing on her black flats...and looked into NiGHTS's blue almond eyes.

"So...are you coming with me?"

Tiana joined him at the edge of the Void--the very end of this realm, the cusp of light and shadow, the jumping-off point, from which no one could be expected to return. She lowered her head for a moment, closing her eyes...feeling the air around her, fiddling with her sleeves and the ends of her hair. It wasn't just Reala. It was the entire world...the entire dimension of reality itself. Everything that she had seen and heard. When something ugly appeared...something cruel, something she did not like, she did not expect, she did not want to see...she couldn't just abandon it. She couldn't just abandon him.

Her head lifted, brown eyes clear, daring the ocean of darkness to take her down now. "Yes," she declared, her voice just as firm and resolute as NiGHTS's...bearing the weight of deep experience and insight. Her Ideya of Wisdom. "Let's go."

And so, together, they joined hands...and dove into the deep unknown, the bright material of the world dissolving into blank singularity at every point around them.

(-)

_The Void..._ The same thought echoed into his own mind as he felt his body sinking into the mire. _This is...the Void..._ Then, gradually, things started coming back to him. Reala carefully opened his eyes again...and it felt as if he had just woken from another dream. Only he was still inside of it.

The thick tentacles squeezed over every inch of his body, immersing him in a binding net. He was completely paralyzed...and for a moment, he couldn't recall how he had gotten here. NiGHTS's cry of desperation rang through his memory, and he could see his brother's face, flushed and twisting with shock, confusion, and pain. Tiana sprinted at his side, also panting, eyes wide like a horse mad with terror.

_NiGHTS! And the girl... My realm..._ Something came up from the deep caverns of his soul, and a sting of panic dashed through him. _Where are they? What happened to them? What happened to everything else? What happened to....me? _All he could recall was feeling faint and unsteady...and then suddenly feeling strong and fierce. And now he was here...

The world was utterly black and shadowed, as dark and terrible as the realm of Nightmare. But this felt entirely different. In Nightmare, there had been that beautiful delicacy of sorrow and fear--a web of intricate silence, accented by crystalline sobs and screams. Here, there was life. The darkness seemed to squirm and shift underneath, and Reala could barely make out the dim outlines of creatures--gruesome, amorphous creatures of evil substance, slithering to and fro, hissing and pulsing in every corner. Perhaps even the darkness was theirs--the stale air itself a creature, hanging watchfully overhead.

Reala sank deeper and deeper into this endless pit, the ropelike arms around him also merging with it in the process. Then at last, he reached some kind of plateau, and felt a light bumping from somewhere below him. With a wet, slithering, slipping noise, the tentacles at last began to loosen themselves around him, enfolding outwards, slowly and carefully, so that a dome of thick black ropes formed, positioning him in its center. Four of them still remained, binding his arms and legs in a vice-grip.

Reala immediately struggled against them, pushing back at their coils, trying to yank his arms up out from within them. He felt the fire--the rush of power surging through him again--and he channeled all of it into the task of breaking through his bonds. He'd slip out of them--he'd tear them completely apart! He needed to get out of here! The Waking World was... NiGHTS and Tiana were...

A burst of air broke out of him, as his body went limp again, flopping over the soft, thick appendage above his waist. It was no use. There was some greater power welding the arms to his skin...something much more powerful than physical strength. A will. A resolve. An essence of malicious intent. And a bonding point.

"...Heh..." A voice came out of the writhing atmosphere, high and yet filled with cruelty and dominance. "Heh heh heh heh heh..."

Reala had never heard a voice like that before in his life, as far back as his dim memories reached. But something about it was very close--an echo of something he carried inside him. "You..."

"Heh heh heh heh." One of the four tentacles stretched above him coiled itself down, drawing close in front of his face. Then the tumid bulb on the end opened up in the middle, like the peels of an onion...revealing one giant, round, iridescent eyeball in the center.

"You."

A massive figure began to form out of the pulsating darkness, the ends of its robe rippling from within, sharp, straight points piercing their way through the living realm above. The name entered Reala's consciousness at the same moment it slid across his lips. "Illuzius."

Illuzius. Master of the Void. Creator of the Voidables. His enemy, since the beginning of time. The eight, eyed tentacles slithered out from the folds of his long, mahogany-red robe. Sitting on top was his round, faceless head of gold, long, straight, spear-like spikes piercing straight upwards over its surface, from which his voice crackled. Two haloed golden rings extended behind it, studded with colored jewels...just as his brother, Wizeman the Wicked of Nightmare. Three diamond-shaped jewels were attached at his collar, the same as the ones on the halos--the center one orange, and the other two purple. Soul crystals. Reala recognized them at once. These were his soul crystals--detachable, dispensable...and powerful.

"Heh heh..." Illuzius cackled again, looming closer over Reala's paralyzed body with pride. "Simple. So simple. And yet he always complained that he could never capture the Guardian of his opposing essence. Could never bend him to his will. He had to send all of his own forces out to accomplish the deed. He had to use his "First-Level". Yet my own opposing Guardian flew right into my grasp!"

Fire surged again within Reala's chest--of protest, rage, panic, and shame. "I will _never _allow you to take my realm!" His black-lipped mouth snarled over the words. "I _will not_ allow you to bend my will so easily! I'll _never_ serve you or any creature in this abominable realm!!!"

"Ah, but you'll serve under my brother without any such resistence, won't you? Though in essence a mirror to the Void, it is still certainly connected. And a fine commander of the Nightmaren you made..."

"_Shut up_!" Reala spat. "It was not my choice!"

"...But it was," Illuzius hissed. His tentacles began to undulate around him, tauntingly, and a few more opened their eyes, to stare through his own. "It was your choice to detach from your realm...it was your choice to bind yourself to Wizeman. It was your choice...to forsake the ones you love, in search of foolish power... It was your choice...to come to me."

A spike of truth thrust into Reala's chest, forcing the air out of him again. "It doesn't matter!!! Now that I've remembered... I am no longer a weakling wasting away in a girl's bed! I'll defeat you--and I'll go back to my realm! I haven't forsaken _anyone_!!! And with this "foolish power", I will crush you!!!"

And in that instant, Illuzius's tentacles snapped away from his body, suddenly releasing him from all restrictions.

"_Hrraaaaaa_!!!" Reala lunged violently into the air--to choke the life out of the Void Master, to tear out his arms, to scratch out his taunting eyeballs, to rip his cloak to pieces. Yet he only crashed forward, to the black rock of the plateau below him.

Confused, panicked, and defiant, he shot up again a moment later...only to topple back onto his elbows. "Ghhhh...ahhh... Ugghhhhh!" Again and again, he tried to wrench his body off the ground--but it always flopped back, heavily, to the front or the side. He was off-balance...his body too heavy for his legs to hold up. His forearms slammed back down against the solid rock...and he stayed there this time, panting and shivering.

"Heh...heh heh..." Illuzius's voice crept out again, the high syllables crawling over his skin. "Look at you. Crippled by your own amass of power. Your own lust for tangible superiority over your subjects. I don't need to do anything--you've ensnared yourself for me."

The swimming heat and the painful, stabbing pulsation of his own crystal overwhelmed Reala's senses, and he could barely even hear the Void Master's taunt. Every fiber of his being was focused on the terrible choking feeling in his chest.

As he slouched there, paralyzed, Illuzius's tentacles began to twirl and dance in the area around him, as if performing some kind of ritual. A deep blue light flickered into being between them, until they shaped it into a solid, sloping barrier. With a blast from another tentacle's eyeball, the black plateau underneath him broke apart. And before Reala even knew what was going on, he found himself trapped in a cage, like a figurine inside a dark snowglobe.

Illuzius chuckled again and retracted his tentacles--the disgusting appendages slithering out of either side of his mahogany robe like living hairs. "No amount of that type of strength in this universe can break through my barrier. I have not yet made the necessary preparations for your coming, since I did not believe that you would be so easy to capture...but it makes no difference. There is no way that you will be able to escape from it until I am ready. You shall see. Sadly, I must leave you now, but I say to you, welcome. A fond welcome to you, Reala...my most powerful and valuable servant."

At last, Illuzius turned, extending his eyeballs, calling his Voidables together...and gradually disappearing amongst their blackness again.

Reala gulped down the sensation, painfully, and his sensors began to throb back to life. His hands were still pressed to the sharp rocks of the ground...but out of the corner of his eye, he could see the blue edge of the barrier shooting into the blackness just ahead. He was trapped again. Helpless. Inhibited. Only this time, it was his own fault.

"Huh..." he gasped. "Ah..." He pulled himself back onto his knees, though he still couldn't lift his arms. And that was when he finally got a good, steady look at his arms.

An acute, sticky, nauseating ball of spit built up in his mouth at the sight, and his stomach twisted and knotted, sickeningly. It was disgusting. He couldn't look. He disgusted himself. It was just like before, except in reverse. It disgusted him, to see the muscles on his arms...bulging and oozing out of the long rips they had torn through the fabric of his sleeves. It wasn't natural. His jacket and tights were also stretched over his newly expanded body, though not as much. It was as if he'd been exposed to some radioactive chemicals--grown and mutated by the power he had stolen from the residents of his own realm.

_I'm a monster. _Reala lowered his head, squeezing in his disgusted bile. _Look at me. I'm a monster. _

He turned towards the barrier of the globe-cage now, wondering what kind of substance it was made out of...and saw his own face reflected in its smooth, shiny blueness. Once again, the disturbing feeling filled him...that otherworldly feeling of being outside of himself. That face was familiar, yes, but it wasn't his. He'd seen that creature sitting on a tall checkered throne...he'd stared into its blue surface, its snarling black lips, felt its stifling breath a centimeter away from his sensors. But now it followed him. It blinked when he blinked. It frowned when he frowned. It shrugged its large, round shoulders when he lifted his.

_Nightmare energy_, Reala thought with a shudder. _Well, of course that would make me feel better. The Nightmare energy. How did I...? _Why_ did I...? I...I wanted it. I wanted to feel it. I can't believe... How could I have done that?!_

He didn't want anything to do with Nightmare now. It disgusted him, the way he'd let Wizeman use him for his own purposes...even to hurt NiGHTS...to take over his realm...to destroy the only things he cared about. The only things...he cared about.

Reala sank down against one curved base of the cage, a limp, aching feeling suddenly overwhelming him. _He...was right_, he now clearly realized. _I _did_ abandon them. And I promised NiGHTS...I promised that I would never let this happen again. That I would be able to stop it. To control it. To control...myself. I can't even control myself._

He closed his eyes at last, just trying not to look at himself--not to look up at the reflective cage or down at his arms. He couldn't bear to see it again. _...I'm an idiot. _

(-)

_So this is the Void? _Tiana thought. It was dark, but strangely not desolate...which was even more disturbing. She wasn't falling anymore...but it strangely didn't feel as if she was standing on solid ground either. She was almost hanging, suspended by the very atmosphere. It felt like something was moving just underneath her. Something was alive, all around her. And the feeling of being accompanied in the darkness...to never be able to get away...was even more terrifying than being all alone in it.

She turned, and for an instant, she couldn't even see NiGHTS beside her. His shine seemed diminished in this wriggling, oppressive darkness. He wasn't facing her.

Slowly, Tiana held out her arms, getting used to the squiggly feeling just under her fingertips. She had never been afraid of the Voidables, since she had first seen them, but now, she couldn't Dualize and fight back. There were all kinds of Voidables here--every type and shape in existence. Yet they didn't seem to be attacking her. They didn't even notice her. Well, she shouldn't question it, as long as they stayed away.

As she lowered her arms, her fingers brushed against something soft and squishy. "Ah! Tiana!" NiGHTS's light voice called out. "Ohmygosh! I thought I lost you!"

Tiana laughed. "You were right next to me the whole time!"

"Heheh! I was?" NiGHTS appeared floating in front of her again, scratching the side of his head.

"Where are we?" she asked him.

"The Void."

"Well, _obviously_. But where _in _the Void?"

"I don't know." NiGHTS shook his head, firmly. "I don't know anything about the Void. It's always just been Ree's thing, you know? It didn't concern me. He wouldn't even tell me when I asked about it."

"Really?" Tiana extended one arm and moved tentatively in his direction, pushing herself somewhat from behind. Her body floated forward like a soft bubble. It felt a little bit like flying with Reala--only more awkward and sluggish. And she was in her own body, of course. "I wonder why. But I'm not surprised--he never tells me anything either."

NiGHTS smiled again, knowingly. The soft glow of his crystal illuminated the area around him, though it faded over the tips of his horns and the ends of his feet. "C'mon," he spoke, urging her on. "Let's go find him. I have absolutely no idea where we are now, but I can feel for his presence. We should be able to locate him in no time!"

_It won't be that easy_, Tiana dourly thought, even as she prodded her body forward after NiGHTS, who began to fly further into the Void, tucking his head down for concentration. _It's never that easy. I don't know why the Voidables aren't attacking me yet, but..._

As she bobbed forward through the thick atmosphere, following NiGHTS, she thought she could see pinpricks of light weaving in and out in the distance--the tiny, living eyes of the gaseous creatures splitting and merging. They were watching her--she could feel the weight of their pressing gazes from every corner. A stream of dread began to crawl through her chest. Something was keeping them at bay now...but how long would it last?

Come to think of it, would NiGHTS be any help at all? She was forbidden to Dualize with him, of course, so they'd both be weaker, right off the bat...and if _Reala_ couldn't fight them when he wasn't Dualized, NiGHTS might be completely useless.

Tiana bit her lip, trying not to think about the blinking stars of the Voidables' eyes growing gradually closer and closer. They would find him. They had to find him soon. _If he remembers... _There was still a tiny shred of doubt in her heart. _If he hasn't abandoned me..._

Meanwhile, NiGHTS himself didn't even notice the Voidables. He was too completely focused on the sensations quivering through his two soft horns. Something didn't feel entirely right about this presence...this feeling. At first, it felt like Reala--but it was a faint throbbing of his aura, mingled with something else. Something he had never felt before. His only hope was to follow it, and hope it would lead them in the right direction. Reala had been changed, after all--perhaps it was the Nightmare energy flowing within him. But yet, whatever it was, he felt he couldn't turn away. He needed to find out.

As NiGHTS glided forward, he began to feel a smooth surface brushing the bottoms of his boots. Pressing his feet down, he realized that there was some kind of floor beneath him now, though he could only make out dim edges in the light of the creatures' eyes.

Tiana noticed it at the same time and stepped onto the platform, at last feeling solid again. "W-What is this?" she asked, astounded. But NiGHTS couldn't hear her.

_So...this place does have landscape to it. It has...some kind of shape. Always changing... _His eyes widened...and for an instant, flashed pure blue.

"NiGHTS?" Tiana stepped a little closer. She could practically _hear _the Voidables slithering through the sky surrounding her. Something was agitating them...and though he may be completely useless, NiGHTS was all that she had for protection now. Would _he have been able to...?_

_It has shape..._ NiGHTS turned from her. The feeling was growing stronger...closer. It was part of him. It felt as if he had another limb...another piece of his very body that he'd never even known existed until now. It wasn't Reala...but something else, very close. Very, very close to him.

The lights danced in and out above him. Tiana was about to call out. She opened her mouth to warn him. But she never had the chance.

A child-shape Voidable suddenly poked its fully-formed, visible head out of the cloud of darkness from above--right in front of NiGHTS's face.

Tiana gasped. And NiGHTS did...nothing.

His eyes were glowing again...soft blue...blank and disconnected. Gently, he lifted his arms...cupping the creature's round, black head in his hands. _So this is a Voidable..._

_What is he doing?!_ Tiana thought. He seemed to have tamed the evil creature somehow...but she dared not step any closer.

The Voidable flew back up, into the air, melting back into its cloud of brethren. And NiGHTS's pale eyes followed it. It was no longer just a cloud of creatures...it was his. His cloud. His outer cloud. His right arm. Waiting to be used. Waiting to be shaped. Just waiting... He could do it. He could just reach out...and touch it.

Unconsciously, his arms began to raise...his hands extended just in front of each shoulder, close. Close...so close. He could touch that piece...the missing part of him, wondrous and new. It was his, after all. He had to know more. He had to touch it...

His arms rose...his palms coming closer...closer...

Now!

NiGHTS's palms slammed into each other, clapping in two quick, violent crashes. And instantly, the world around him changed.

The Voidables fell into their places, molding and shaping themselves into a beautiful multicolored forest of pink trees, purple waterfalls, and bright plastic-green grasses. And his face broke into a smile of pure wonder and fascination.

Tiana saw nothing. She saw NiGHTS's back before an infinity of darkness, his hands together in front of him, as if giving the darkness a round of applause. _He can't be... Did he... No, please don't tell me... _The dread trembled within Tiana's heart. "N-NiGHTS?" she called again. "Hey, NiGHTS? We have to get going...you know...finding Reala. Can you hear me?!"

He whirled around, and Tiana leaped back in surprise. She hadn't actually expected to get a response out of him. Maybe it wasn't as bad as she'd feared. ...But his eyes still looked strangely blank. He smiled to her.

"N-NiGHTS...?"

"Tiana!" His voice was oddly airy. "There you are! Isn't this amazing?"

"W-What?" Tiana struggled to reply, fearing the worst in her heart. "I don't see anything. Do you mean...the Void?"

NiGHTS's face lit up, and his ghostly eyes glowed brighter. "Oh, let's play together! You'd like that, wouldn't you?! We can play here forever!"

"_N-no_," Tiana found her Courage welling up to protest. She couldn't stand listening to him talking nonsense like this. "We have to find Reala! That's what we _came _here for! We have to go now!"

NiGHTS bobbed down closer to her, putting on a sad, disappointed face. "Why are you so angry?"

"Because you're acting like a moron!"

"You don't...want to play with me?"

The Voidables churned and rolled above his head, threateningly.

_It's _him_, _Tiana realized. _It was NiGHTS. They won't harm him. They're protecting him. Because he is one of them. _

Her black flat slipped back on the smooth floor of the platform. She would have to run. She would have to start now, if she hoped to outstrip them. She would be all on her own now...but she had to do this. There was no one she could trust...but herself.

"Well...I don't care if _you _forgot. I'm going to find him by myself!" And with that, she turned...sprinting across the dark platform as fast as she could push herself, not daring to look back.

For a moment, NiGHTS could only hang there in the atmosphere, stunned.

Tiana pounded her stinging legs against the platform, the soles of her flats tapping in quick succession, her hair and the ends of her skirt and sleeves trying to drag her back. Her eyes squeezed shut against the wind. She couldn't look. She couldn't dare to look.

"Tiana...?" NiGHTS's voice finally wheezed. She was growing steadily smaller and smaller...further and further away...she was going to break off. She was going to break it. Break it! She was going to break it! "W-Wait...!" He couldn't let her!

A terrible, desperate panic had begun in the depths of NiGHTS's being. Like it was something he needed. He needed air, and he couldn't get it. He was going to die...he was going to burst if he couldn't get it! "Wait!" his lips violently jolted over the word.

The blue, rippling folds of Tiana's dress were almost gone now. Soon, it would snap. As if there was a cord tied around her waist, connected to NiGHTS's heart. It was tight, tugging, yanking, pulling...soon, she would tear it straight out of him. She would break it! She would break it all!!! She couldn't--! She couldn't--!!!

"DON'T GO!!!"

With a skittering, crackling, and rolling, the Voidables shot forward from all around him, swarming and buzzing forward, headed straight for Tiana's distant form at the sound of their commander's agonized screech.

NiGHTS remained in that position a moment more, hands pressed to the sides of his head, body squeezed inwards, bracing itself for the pain of being ripped apart. And nothing came. Nothing came. Nothing...

Something gently slipped away from him...something he couldn't clearly recall. Tiana? Where was Tiana? Why did she...?

NiGHTS opened his eyes again, between his clenched gloves--crystal clear, wide, and filled with utter shock and dread. What had he just _done_?!

In the distance, he could see the ends of Tiana's dress, just barely, as she slipped into the darkness--and the rushing stars of the Voidables' eyes as they chased after her. And then, everything came back to him at once. That girl, Reala's capture, and everything, everything that had happened...

"...Tiana!" NiGHTS called, and instantly, he shot off after them. _Oh God, Tiana... What have I _done_ to her?!_

(-)

It had only been about fifteen minutes, but it felt like hours on end. How long did it take to make a mind-wiping device? To take one of the shattered soul crystals and shape it into a facsimile of a Guardian's? For a Master, who knew? No one knew very much about how the Masters operated. Not even Reala, who'd been a pawn of one.

He was still settled in a corner of the bubble-cage, knees up near his chest, hands dragging on the ground, and trying to look anywhere but at his arms or at the reflective surface of the barrier. He couldn't stand this...left with no option but to sit here and wait for his doom to arrive.

He'd tried pushing against the barrier, but just as Illuzius had said, it wouldn't budge an inch, no matter how hard he threw the weight of his body against it. He couldn't fly to check the barrier above, nor could he even stand up. If he even tried to lift his arms, the rest of his body ended up flopping after them, collapsing uselessly under the mass. So he just closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep.

Only he couldn't, of course. Firstly, he was just too anxious and panicked. At any second, the Void Master could return with his finished devices, and wipe away his memories again. Everything he had worked so hard to gain back would be gone again in a flash, and there was nothing he could do about it. And secondly, the Nightmare energy just wouldn't let him rest. Whenever he closed his eyes and tried to drift off to sleep, it pulsed up within the nerves of his body, pounding like a crazed heartbeat, as if he'd just had twenty cups of coffee.

Reala growled in frustration and tore his eyes open again to stare into the border of the cage, where the blue force field melded into the black jagged rock. And he stared some more. He frowned.

_That looks...different somehow_. A terrible suspicion was sneaking into his mind, and at first, he was reluctant to have it confirmed. But he had to know for sure. He had to try to do something about it.

With a cringe against the disgusting sight, he unraveled a bit of the black strip over his stomach and tore a long piece off. It was awkward to try to maneuver when he always had to keep one hand on the ground at all times, but luckily, the wrappings had ripped and come a little loose already. Then at last, Reala attached one end of the fabric strip at the base of the bubble with a rock...and stretched it to the other side, making a small puncture with his nails at the point where it met.

Then, after another five minutes (or three hours), he did it again. The new hole was an inch below the first one.

The cold feeling spread through Reala's chest as he stared at the holes. _...I was right. This cage _is _shrinking..._ He glanced up at the rounded side high above him, ignoring his ghostly reflected outline. _Does he intend to crush me in this bubble? He wouldn't. He needs me, as his servant. I'm much more valuable to him than that. I'm the protector of the very world he's trying to take over. There will be nothing to stop him. Except the Awakers. And they won't stand a chance. _

Reala led out a frustrated sigh and sank back to the ground, leaning his back against one blue, shrinking wall. _He just wants to make sure I'm as uncomfortable as possible. _

He lowered his head to his chest again, and as the space around him gradually continued to contract, so did his mind. It was pressing in...it was slowly pressing in, though no one could see it. The world was closing in...on one single piece of his soul.

(-)

Tiana's own breath throbbed in her eardrums. Every muscle of her body strained and ached. A terrible, sharp pain suddenly pierced the side of her gut. She never was much of a runner. _Stupid gym class..._

Her thoughts were all knotted and twisted together, so that she couldn't think clearly. All she knew was that she couldn't look back. No matter what, she couldn't look back. She had no idea where she was going, but it was better than sticking around here. She had to run away...though she had no way of knowing what she was running to.

_I'm going to die._ That was the only clear thought in her mind as her body began to fail on her, and her shaking legs slowed. _I'm going to die. _

It didn't take long for the Voidables to catch up. The swarm of creatures rushed around her, rustling the ends of her dress, and her body fell back. Tiana crouched, pressing her hands to her knees, panting and coughing. It was useless. She was no match for these creatures by herself. NiGHTS had abandoned her, and Reala...well, no one knew what had happened to Reala.

The Voidables shrieked in delight, their lighted eyes dancing over her. With a few weak strokes, she managed to smack away the ones that got too close, but she couldn't keep it up for long. She was surprised that she could actually land punches on them--apparently, in their own world, they were solid all the time.

Panic and adrenaline surged through Tiana's body, crackling through the ends of her limbs, but the Voidables dashed forward again and overwhelmed her. Child Voidables scratched at her neck, sharp leaves slit her exposed arms, metal pipes bruised her sides, and even more threatening spears and spike mines were beginning to materialize in the distance. She struggled and kicked and screamed for her life, but it was no use. No one could hear her.

_I'm going to die._

Tiana jerked her head up to what she assumed was the sky, over the lighted wall of Voidables that were gathering together to block her path. _Anyone. Anything. Please, _she thought. _Please._

And then...something began to glow...

(-)

_Tiana._ The name--the person--softly faded into his collapsing mind. _Tiana_.

That was the one piece...the piece he was searching for, and couldn't find. The piece called "Tiana". The piece that was his and yet not his at the same time.

Reala squeezed his eyes shut once again, trying to feel for it...and that's when he realized. _She's gone. She'll never come back now. It's been too many times... This was not required. There is no explanation for this. I really...truly betrayed her this time. I've...hurt her._

The piece...the seed... The tiny seed of that part of his soul, which he had always tried to deny. It was there, and he was afraid of it. For some reason, he was deathly afraid of its existence. It was too close. And yet it was there. He didn't want to see it, didn't want to think about it, but he couldn't do without it. He had to hold on to it, as tightly as he could. He wanted to hold on to it. It was something very, very special and unique. Close.

But now, it was gone. It was gone, and he needed it. And he himself had crushed it. He had destroyed it.

_Tiana..._

It felt...bad. Very bad. He wasn't really sure why...but it did. And somehow, it felt as if this wasn't the first time.

Reala sat up, almost automatically...and pressed his face into his hands. And it was in that moment that he came briefly out of the confinement room of his mind, to feel something at once exterior. Something very strange to him.

Immediately, Reala pulled back, his face twisted and squeezed with confusion. He spread his fingers over one cheek, just to be sure, just to feel it again. _What's this...sticky stuff...all over my face?_

It hurt...it hurt, not on the outside, but something internal. Something within his soul. His soul crystal. It was Tiana. It was their connection.

_Tiana. _That kind, innocent, witty, understanding, sensitive girl.

Reala's eyes closed again, and this time, he could feel that seed inside of him, damaged and crumpled as it was. It had always been there. His fingers crawled up again...and this time, pressed lightly, tenderly, over his blue crystal.

_...She is a part of me. _

"_Aaaagggh_! _Aaaaahugh_!!!"

Suddenly, a pain like he'd never felt before thrust straight through his chest. Reala gasped, his body flopping forward onto the base of the cage, convulsing in spasms of agony. It felt as if a thousand knives were tearing him apart from the inside, every chunk separating and ripping apart from each other.

Something was coursing through his limbs, flooding and gushing through his entire system...but it wasn't the Nightmare energy. He could feel that as well--bubbling and churning and percolating just under the surface of his skin.

Reala's mouth gnashed open against the cold, hard surface of the cage's base, forcing out a horrible, wailing scream. There was no room for thought. All he could do was lie pressed against the ground, feeling the thing--the energy, the life, the feeling--twisting through his body. His own screaming faded into a vacuum of noise--the buzzing undertone of machines, the slicing of helicopter choppers.

His body gave a sudden spasm, flinging him hopelessly against the obsidian floor, his arms and legs quivering as if turning into jello. Hot panic squeezed through Reala's chest as he felt his arms convulsing disgustingly--bubbling, reforming, and mutating. Then it was his legs. Then his torso.

He coughed. He coughed and coughed, violently and purposefully, as if trying to expel a lung. It was rejection. Something inside of him, that his body was rejecting, with everything it had.

He pressed himself closer, just trying to get it to stop, just wishing for it to stop, unable to think of anything else besides the pain...the horrible pain, the unbearable pain, his own...pain. _Please just stop. _

But then...just when he thought he couldn't take it anymore...when he thought he'd have to kill himself, just to get the pain to finally stop...he found it.

He brushed up against it, just for a moment...as if he'd been swimming through an endless dark ocean of pain, and suddenly touched against a spot of warm light. Everything faded.

Reala's body was still at last--deathly still, exhausted, and overstrained. Everything was numb. There was just...nothing. Nothing outside. Nothing inside. Quiet. Stillness. Reala's eyes stared, wide and blank, from the darkness of the cage ground, his head turned sideways, towards the edge of the shrinking force field. Separated. Soulless.

But slowly...something was building in his chest...bleeding in...piecing itself back together...and returning. Mounting...and mounting...and mounting. Until suddenly, it felt it might burst. It might burst.

And then, he took a new breath.

It was small and awkward at first...but it grew. Gasping a little, he drew his breath in deeper...letting it reach its fingers down into the innermost chambers of his being...places that had never before been touched. And with it came his life...his thoughts, his feelings, his memories...his strength. His real strength. The only strength that mattered. The kind he had forgotten...or never even knew in the first place. It was back. It was here at last. And everything felt right again.

Reala pressed his hands into the ground. Then his knees. Then...without a single dip or wobble...he rose to his feet, standing firm, solid and determined as a hundred-foot statue.

Experimentally, he raised one arm, letting it hang there in the air...and stared into the ripped pieces dangling from its long, thin shape. His other hand began to reach out for them...then dropped back to his side. And he looked away.

His hand lowered...gently folding in, as if for the first time...his fingertips meeting a smooth, warm, glowing surface. It was his. He could feel it...for the first time, in a very, very long time. As if all the walls and shutters had been pulled back from his mind, and from his heart. From his soul crystal.

Reala's hand closed around the shining blue crystal on his chest, unaffected by its searing hot surface. It was a part of his own body, after all. It was his own life, as it always had been. Only now, he knew it. And he could accept it. Fully and openly.

_This is what he wants. _His thoughts came back to him in words, at last. _This is what Illuzius wants. What he wants to take away from me. What he's been trying to take away from me. What I've let him take away from me. Something I've never even really had...until now. Because I wouldn't look at it. _

With a firm little tug, Reala pulled the crystal from its slot on his chest, holding it tightly in one hand. Its shine didn't fade for an instant--and the act even seemed to intensify its inner glow. He was a part of it now...he could hold his own heart in his hand...and still let it be his heart.

Then, at last, with his new, conscious mind, Reala decided. He lifted one arm to the sky, to the world, nearly brushing the ceiling of the contracting force field, just like his declaration under Wizeman's influence, renouncing all connection with his other half. But this time, it was confirmation and acceptance...of himself.

The light of the diamond-shaped jewel in his hand beamed straight through the blue fabric of the cage, and he could feel its power--his own power--welling within him. So this was what the Void Master had meant.

And so, raising his head and his sight to the dark depths of the entire realm in challenge, Reala made his declaration.

"If this is what you want...I will _never _let you have it!!!"

(-)

Blue light bloomed from the horizon, above the wall of Voidables gathering just in front of her. And though Tiana's mind didn't immediately know, the rest of her soul surged forth along with it--_Reala!_

A new power burst into being within her--something she'd never even known she had--and suddenly, she didn't feel weak and helpless anymore at all. She could do something. She could get to that light--that light which was calling her--that light which she needed. She was no longer confused, afraid or unsure. Everything felt reachable, solid, and secured in the world.

A shot of adrenaline beat through her, and almost before she even knew it, she'd torn all the Voidables from her shoulders, head, and ankles, exploding into a run towards the blue light in the distance with all her might. Tiana couldn't stop for even an instant to consider her odds or to let them hinder her. Her body--and her heart--threw themselves in the direction of the light...towards her hope and her completion.

The Voidables piled themselves on top of each other, squirming and jumping desperately, trying to stop her, but the burning light of the distance and her own soul was too much for them. Tiana leaped into the air, straight over them, vaulting above their barrier, breaking the skittering creatures apart and dispelling them into the atmosphere. For a moment, it was as if she was flying, all on her own--hovering there in the Void, just like before...but this time with wings.

Her sleeves billowed out behind her like a bluebird's feathers as her body sailed through the black, dense air. But she wasn't flying...she was falling.

Tiana tucked her knees up against the wind rushing over her as she felt herself plummeting into the bottomless oblivion...but for some reason, she wasn't afraid.

The light was below her, growing closer and closer as she shot towards it. It was a large, round globe, filled with brilliant blue light. Brilliant, powerful, and pure, driving back the darkness of the Void. Her arms stretched out for it, just to touch it, to come back to it, to feel it again. And that's when she saw it.

There was a tall, thin figure standing in the center of that globe, the shadow of his two curled sensors barely shadowed below the blinding source of the light. It was really him, she knew now...and Tiana's heart leaped with pure joy and relief.

"_Reala_!" she called out to him...but he didn't even need to hear it.

His eyes flew open, joining the intense blueness of the cage, and his heart rejoiced even more. Tiana! She was here! She hadn't given up on him! But before he even consciously thought it, his entire being was rushing to her, in the blink of an eye, reattaching his crystal and launching himself into the air, to the ceiling edge of the cage, where her hands were reaching out for him.

And then, right there, through the smooth barrier of the cage's force field...their hands met.

A rush of wind burst around Tiana's body, just like the very first time they Dualized. Ridged colors of white and pale blue filled her senses, and for a moment, it felt as if she was flying through the clouds. The whooshing of air across a narrowing hole stabbed deep into her eardrums, and she noticed her hands automatically curled up towards her chin, away from the dome of Reala's cage.

Her feet bumped against the smooth ebony ground again. And when she opened her eyes, it was all over.

In front of her was a hollow blue globe, attached to the jagged ground...shrinking. The globe-cage grew smaller and smaller before her eyes, collapsing in on itself...squeezing its edges in, crushing its own inner sanctum. Along with it, Tiana's eyes grew in the same increments, her breath knotting within her chest as she watched.

Her body was losing its strength now, limp with the shock and aftereffects of her adrenaline rush. She began to slip backwards, unaware...until her back bumped into something warm. She fell into two thin, yet strong, arms which immediately clamped firmly over her chest and yanked her away, into the air.

Tiana could only gape at the crumpled sphere in awe, before finally turning her head up towards the creature that held her. Reala's face was grim and unreadable as always...yet there was something different about it. Perhaps it was only the contrast of their blackened surroundings...but his round face looked _white_. Not white, like the pale, sickly color he had been, lying paralyzed in her bed...but just white. Milky white...pearly white. A soft, healthful shine of white that she had never seen before.

His body was thin and supple again--not frail, but smooth. The same size as his brother. The checkers on his sleeves, the stripes on his boots, and the stripes of his sensors were all maroon-red...the same lighter shade they had been when he'd lost the last of his Nightmare energy. Only now, he had his own energy to support him.

Though its shine had faded considerably, his blue crystal was still glowing with life and energy--faint and almost unnoticeable, just like NiGHTS's red one. Yet Tiana knew that if she touched it, it would be white-hot. He had done it, at last. He had re-melded with his soul. Though it had taken a betrayal and a trip to the Void to do it.

And then, as Tiana stared up in amazement, she realized that there was something else different about Reala's face. His smooth cheeks looked shiny...more so than the rest of his skin.

"R-Reala?" she spoke to him at last. But he didn't pay any attention to her yet. He was too focused on taking her away from here--as far away and as fast as possible. His eyes blazed forward as he flew, tightly holding on to her, so she wouldn't fall.

He would have to say something, eventually. He would have to try to explain. He would have to apologize. But for now, he only needed to know one thing.

"Where's NiGHTS?"

Tiana's heart froze a little in her chest at the sound of that name. "N-N-NiGHTS?"

"Yes."

"Um...NiGHTS is...not well. I...I don't know where he is now."

"Not well? What do you mean, 'not well'?!"

Tiana took in a deep breath at the sound of his argumentative tone. "I...I had to leave him, to come find you. He got a little lost. But I had to find you! I couldn't just...leave you...here... Even if...you didn't care about me. Even if you had abandoned me."

Reala let out a frustrated sigh. "I was just..._confused. _I...I didn't know what I was doing. You know how delusional I was getting towards the end of... Augh, just forget it, okay? Forget it ever happened."

Tiana smiled. She knew that was all the apology she was ever going to get.

Reala growled deep in his chest and yanked her further through the pulsing blackness of the dark realm. Apparently, she wasn't going to tell him anything else about what had happened to NiGHTS....so he'd just have to find him himself.

Reala closed his eyes, curling his fingers tightly over Tiana's shoulders and shifting her into a more comfortable position. He lowered his head to feel around the area for NiGHTS's aura. It was there, just to the right, in the distance...though it felt much fainter than it ever had before, as if he was distanced from it. As if he was excluded from it. Tiana's own aura was closer, which just felt strange. Maybe something really _had _happened to NiGHTS...

It was extremely odd, especially for more than a second, to feel that this girl he'd only just met a few months ago was now closer to him than the partner he'd been with all of his infinite life. But she was...and he knew it. At least for now.

He had no idea, really, how it had happened. The whole experience was completely surreal--more like part of the Dreaming World than his own, and that was probably why he didn't even want to think about it. But there was nothing he could do about it. All three of them were here, trapped in the Void, in danger of being crushed by the Voidables and their Master.

Reala narrowed his eyes as he continued flying forward, hopefully in the general direction of NiGHTS's aura. _No matter where he is,we need to keep moving_, he decided. _Illuzius will be returning soon, and when he finds out that I escaped the cage..._

He tuned his thoughts to their current peril, focusing only on the immediate danger...though deep within his soul crystal, in the cavity of his heart, he was feeling completely calm and even joyful. He had been forgiven...he had been accepted back into her life, to occupy this new, amazing position, close to her own soul. It was so very close...a dangerous, fearful closeness...but also a position of peace and wholeness... Reala couldn't ever remember feeling so _complete _before. It was powerful, but calm, and light. It was a wonderful feeling, and he couldn't believe that he'd ever once refused it.

"_Tianaaaaaa_!!!"

They both heard NiGHTS before he felt him. Reala immediately angled himself in his direction, and soon enough, a purple streak was whizzing towards them. He was dashing forward so quickly that he nearly passed by them. A sharp, high-pitched gasp shout out of NiGHTS's chest, and he yanked himself to a stop, just barely in front of them.

"R-R-_Ree_!" His deep indigo eyes widened, his mouth stretched open with awe. "Y-You... She...she... Tiana! A-Are you okay?"

"Yeah..." Tiana's voice was quiet and unsure. NiGHTS seemed to be okay now. Whatever kind of control the Voidables had managed to gain over his mind had faded away. Perhaps he didn't even remember it. Now that they had found Reala, it was over, anyway. They could just get out of here--come back to the Waking World and start over. Right...?

She didn't want to do this...she really didn't want to do this. How could she tell Reala, so soon after re-connecting with him, that his own brother had betrayed them, even for a moment?

Reala certainly was suspicious enough on his own. He hovered, gently, closer to his partner and placed Tiana onto another one of those black, invisible platforms, below them. "So what happened with you?" he asked, crossing his arms.

"Ah..." NiGHTS was at first speechless, staring into his eyes and the crystal on his chest with complete wonder and awe. "Uh...um, we just got a little lost, and Tiana ran off by herself, to find you. That's all. We're...fine, really."

Reala cocked an eye socket back at him, but there was no time to try to torture the rest out of him now. "Well, we're all here right now, and I guess that's what counts."

He turned his head, staring out across the dark expanse, to wherever the Void Master lied in wait, spinning his malicious devices. "I was...captured, as you know. With this girl's help, I managed to escape the field that was placed around me, but we can't remain hidden from him much longer. He probably sensed the collapse of his force field and is hurrying to check on it right now. If we don't move quickly--"

Reala twitched as NiGHTS touched the side of one gloved finger to his cheek. There was just no way that NiGHTS could listen to these words when something so amazing and elusive was right there in front of him. Something he'd never thought he'd get to see again in his lifetime.

Carefully, tenderly, he pulled his arm back, cupping his other hand above his finger, as if sheltering a young flame from the wind. Only there, just on the edge of his index finger, was a tiny, round teardrop. A single tear...from Reala's cheek.

Closer...and closer...he brought it up to his own face...to his own cheek, to his lips...as if he was about to kiss it, or sip it into his own body. This rare, precious substance... He wished he could keep it forever, in a little glass box, where the sun could shine and reflect off its crystalline bead. Reala's tear...the first in over twelve years.

At last NiGHTS lifted his eyes again, letting them rest on the beautiful, miraculous sight of the soft, glowing blue crystal of his soul. A wonderful feeling of warmth...of closeness, of love...was welling through him. And once again, he could barely speak.

"You... Reala, you...you melded... You...are complete now... And this...this is all it took. You just...needed to cry."

Reala scowled back and brusquely wiped his face with the dangling strips of one sleeve. "We have more important things to worry about now than my emotional health."

NiGHTS smiled, his own crystal warming from within. Everything was back to normal now. Everything was going to be okay. At long last, Reala had truly returned.

"Ree will be Ree," he chirped.

Reala rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Let's just go. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can--" But once again, he never got to finish his sentence.

A terrible, heart-trembling shriek sliced through the entire realm, bringing all movement to a dead halt. For an instant, every single Voidable was suspended, motionless, beside each other, and cracks of light appeared between them.

Tiana felt the entire plateau tremble underneath the thin soles of her flats. _What is _that_?! _Panic leapt through her chest, though the rest of her froze. _Is that...the big thing? The thing that captured him in the first place, with those huge tentacles?_

"Illuzius," Reala snarled again, as soon as the wailing had ceased. "There's no way out of it now." He swooped down, smoothly, as if to protect Tiana, holding her back. "We're going to have to face him."

Tiana gulped back her breath and tried to find her Ideya of Courage. It didn't seem to be doing its job. Reala turned, his familiar clear blue eyes staring straight into her own. But this time, it didn't feel intimidating or intrusive. It felt almost comforting and bolstering.

"This is it," he told her, his voice taking on the grave and final tone he had used so many times before, at the end of each reality...and at the beginning of the last. "If we can defeat the Master of the Void, the invasion will be over. At least for now. It'll never be over for good. And you still need one more ideya. But it's time now. It's time now, to face him...and see what comes of it."

The rumbling aftershock of Illuzius's screech was now beginning to build beyond the black curtain, rolling over and over itself. He was searching them out...pinpointing the only miniscule speck of non-Voidable life in this entire realm. It wasn't that hard to find them.

Tiana clenched her hands, under the long flares of her sleeves. She whirled around to get a look at NiGHTS, and his face was also unusually grave, focused exclusively on Reala. He was worried about him, probably. Maybe he was worried about her too. But he also looked solemn...like this was something they just had to accept and work through. Reala's face had a similar look.

Tiana didn't want to die now. She cared about her own world...she wanted to go back to it. She needed to see her town, her school, and her mother. She couldn't die here...far away...where no one would know. But at least, if she was going to face the terrifying prospect of losing everything that she had gained thus far...she didn't have to face it alone.

Reala nodded to her, knowingly, and she felt it within her heart. He could read her feelings, and she knew it. They were together in this. And they'd be together in it to the end.

Tiana's body clutched as the rumbling increased, yet she stood her ground. Reala turned towards the sound and extended his arms, shielding her. NiGHTS squeezed his gloved hands to his lips. And all together, they lifted their heads to face the doom and destiny that awaited them.


	11. The Balance

It's here. Make sure you have nothing at all important to do and lock yourself in a distraction-free environment. The final chapter is here!

I again apologize for the extremely long time it has been since the last update. I could blame school again, but I know that wasn't all. But the important thing is that it IS here. And it is now complete, at last.

This is the first time I've ever used bolded text in the content of a story...but I really felt like this story needed it, because italics and capitals just didn't give the words the kind of effect I needed.

For the last time, Reala, NiGHTS, exc. belong to SEGA/SonicTeam. And Tiana, Illuzius, exc. belong to me.

Stay tuned for the bonus material, featuring deleted scenes and ideas! ...Though they might not be up for a week or two, because my life is really crazy right now.

(-)

Chapter 11: The Balance

The two Guardians and the teenage girl pressed back, bracing themselves. Long, thick, black tentacles slithered forward out of the darkness before them. The buds at their tips opened, revealing bulbous, multicolored eyeballs. And then, in a sudden flash of light, the Void Master appeared, his long, maroon robe and golden spiked head towering above them. Reala glared up at him with a hatred he hadn't felt since his days as a Nightmaren. Tiana cowered a little, automatically, in the shadow of the all-powerful, otherworldly being. And NiGHTS...did nothing.

"Well, well, well." The Void Master's voice was high and slithering, from the ends of his head-spikes. "_This _is interesting. I hadn't anticipated the return of the Explorer girl. And after you went and abandoned her...destroyed all her hopes like that. Do you really deserve such a devoted follower?"

"Shut up!" Reala snapped back at him. "We're not here to listen to your senseless taunting. You have no part in what happens between me and my Explorer!"

"If only _we _had such abilities..." Illuzius's voice was venomous now, the ends of his robe flapping over anxiously waving tentacles. "If _we_ could make use of these wild-card creatures. We wouldn't waste them on petty disputes."

"You are a monster," Reala harshly said, under his breath. "And that is the difference between us."

Tiana clutched her hands to her chin, fixing her eyes on the back of Reala's angled sensors, so as not to look at the Void Master again and feel intimidated. She couldn't understand all of what they were saying, but that terrible dread feeling was building within her. _We're going to fight. Here it comes. We're going to fight him. That huge thing... I have to try my hardest..._ Tiana prepared herself to Dualize, going over all of the air movements she'd performed in her mind, mimicking the feeling of unity with another soul. And then...everything was shattered by a single motion.

In the corner of her vision, Tiana noticed NiGHTS...moving. He hadn't said anything or moved a centimeter since Illuzius's appearance. But now, his hands were moving. His round face was turned up towards the Master's golden, spiked head, his eyes wide, ghostly blank saucers. His hands were slowly raising...his palms turning up...arms spreading wide. At last, his arms lifted all the way above his head, limply, like a marionette...and his body collapsed onto the black platform before Illuzius, to his knees, in utter supplication.

"No..." Tiana whispered, the fear of betrayal again crawling into her heart. "Not again..."

"..._NiGHTS_!" Reala snapped to attention and shot forward, sliding to the ground and tackling his hypnotized brotherfrom behind. He grabbed his shoulder and forced him back, flinging his arms around his chest, as if trying to protect him from the Void Master's power. But NiGHTS only flopped back in his arms like a ragdoll, his ghost-blue eyes still fixed on Illuzius's gold halo, as if he didn't even see Reala at all.

Reala snarled back up in Illuzius's direction...but the dark master was only chuckling again, spitefully. "What have you done to him?!" Reala demanded. "You did something to him! I know you did!"

"I did nothing," Illuzius replied, a gleeful smugness in his crackling voice. "I don't _need_ to do anything. If it was that easy for me to capture the Guardian of my opposing essence, the Guardian of my supporting essence should be a cinch!"

Reala froze. The pearlescent sheen of his face began to drain out. "_Supporting_...essence?"

"_Aaaagh_!!!" Suddenly, NiGHTS snapped to life again, smacking Reala back with all of his strength, and Reala was so stunned that he had no time to react. He tumbled back onto his butt, and NiGHTS threw his arms up to the sky again...to the long, thick tentacles of Illuzius swirling above him.

"Rrrgh." Reala's teeth ground together in frustration. "NiGHTS, what are you _doing_?!"

NiGHTS wouldn't answer.

One of Illuzius's tentacles came down closer, opening its bulb-eye a few feet in front of NiGHTS's face, between his extended arms...and he smiled.

Reala turned, pulling himself up...and felt his soul freeze over his chest, for just a moment. That eye...that big, iridescent eye... He knew what it was. He knew all too well what was going on now.

"_NiGHTS_!!" He desperately barked. He wrenched his body from the ground, hurling himself at his brother and clamping violently around his waist. "NiGHTS, don't do it!!!"

"_Get off_!" The transfixed Guardian shrieked again, pounding back against his brother's arms--but Reala wouldn't be so easily shaken off this time.

"NiGHTS, listen to me--he's not your--"

"Let go of me!!" NiGHTS writhed and twisted in his arms, trying to tear them back, desperately swinging and flailing to get away. "Let go! Let _go_!"

Reala was forced to grab his arms, pinning them down and trying to restrain him, but he only turned and kicked him sharply in the stomach. "_Gh_!" Reala grit his teeth and tightened his grip around his brother's arms, rolling over to the side. They rolled back and forth, squeezing and slapping and kicking and punching each other, in a fearsome wrestling match.

Tiana slowly slipped back on the platform, her hands clenching up to her chin with anxiety. She was all alone again...and just seeing the two creatures fighting and struggling against each other like this filled her with a terrible sense of dread. The way NiGHTS was flailing and shrieking right now reminded her eerily of Reala's own fit of hysteria when he was too weak to stand up anymore. NiGHTS was acting the same...as if he had become an entirely different person in a matter of just a few minutes. She had hoped she'd never have to see this again. To see either of them, reduced to this. Because...she knew how it felt, to be crazy with anger, frustration, and hopelessness.

She closed her eyes, trying to block out the anxiety-fraught sounds of their continued grunting, screaming, panting, and the thumping of their light bodies against the glossy black ground. She couldn't watch it anymore. And as Tiana stood there, blocking the world out with her mind, she didn't notice the long, thick black cord slithering up out of the darkness behind her.

At last, in one rolling tumble across the floor, Reala managed to shove NiGHTS's ankles down, pinning them to the floor, and quickly seized his arms, smashing the rest of him firmly down in place. He could feel the strength surge through his body, as he at last overpowered him. He was just as strong now as ever before--even stronger than he'd been for the past couple of months--and yet still scrawny as a toothpick. The energy of his newly melded crystal enhanced every aspect of his performance, apparently.

"_Uhhh_!" NiGHTS cried out...but remained in place this time. He realized that it was no use fighting it, even in his brainwashed state.

Reala wrenched his head up towards Illuzius with a look of contempt, to find the Void Master's tentacles wavering in front of him again, a piercing chuckle emitting from the ends of his head-spikes.

"The Void..." he cackled, shifting his cloak-body a little closer. "Our home. Opposite to the Waking World as Nightmare is opposite to the Dreaming World. You of the Waking World are my opposite, as you are the compatible of Nightmare. You became a Nightmaren under my brother's direction. So, of course, NiGHTS of the Dreaming World is opposite to him...and my compatible..."

_Who...can become a Voidable_. Reala gravely finished the sentence in his mind, with a stab of ice in his chest. He had always had the instinctive feeling to keep NiGHTS away from the Void. He knew there was something about the Void that he should never tell him...that he had to protect him from it somehow--he just didn't know why. _I should have figured that out_. His feeling from long before--that innate feeling that though there was no such thing as a "first-level Voidable", one _did_ exist. _NiGHTS is the "first-level Voidable". _

"_Yiiiiiaaaaugh_!!!" A shriek suddenly erupted from behind them, piercing straight into Reala's newly recovered heart. He wrenched his body around just in time to see Tiana's body fly into the air, her mop of brown hair flopping forward like a doll in the hands of a destructive young child. The thick, black tentacle of Illuzius was constricted around her waist, yanking her and tossing her about, at its unrelenting mercy.

"_Tiana_!" Reala's body started and shuddered, the connected essence of his crystal immediately compelling him to follow her...but he couldn't leave. If he left, then NiGHTS...NiGHTS might...

A maelstrom of churning and conflicting emotions choked within him as he knelt there, torn between his soul-mate and the sharer of half his heart, until he felt as if he might tear apart again. His fists slammed down into the concrete, his teeth gnashing together with frustration and helplessness.

Illuzius cackled again and drew Tiana closer to his cloaked body, winding her up, holding her as his hostage. She tore furiously at his arms, but it was no use for a mere human being, and she soon fell exhaustedly over the coil at her waist again.

_He...he did that on purpose!!_ Reala's mind raged. _He let NiGHTS and I duke it out as a distraction while he went for Tiana! He knew I wouldn't let him give himself over. That I'd forget to guard her. Oh, God, why...?! How could... How could...?! That manipulative bastard!_

"Forget someone again?" Illuzius spoke at last, holding Tiana above them, tauntingly. "Really, I don't understand how she deserves such an unappreciative partner as who would completely forget about her on more than one occasion. Dear girl, it seems you mean nothing to him. He just needed you to free him, and that was all. You are only his valued personal tool."

Tiana cringed as another of Illuzius's snakelike tentacles passed over her head, brushing her hair back--not only from the contact, but from his abhorrent words. _Ugh_. The thought ran through her mind. _Does he really think I would believe _that_? Well...I suppose I did think about it in the beginning. I thought that way a lot. But I know better than that now. Just because he isn't the best friend in the world sometimes doesn't mean he doesn't care at all! What does he think I am?!_

She turned her head down, towards the forms of two jester-like Guardians below--a pair of plastic figurines hovering in the infinite blackness. But then, two aqua lights lifted towards her...and joined with her eyes. _He knows that_, Tiana thought, as she fixed her vision on Reala's large, oval eyes, glowing against his pale, upturned face. _I know--he must know that. Before, when we joined just for that one moment, I could feel that he had accepted me. That...I am part of him. _

She couldn't move her arms, but she managed to lean herself forward, as if reaching out for him...but just when she was about to open her mouth to cry out, another tentacle flung itself around her head, nearly smothering her. The panic and adrenaline of endangered life ignited within her, but the coil relaxed a moment later, allowing her to breathe again. Apparently, he didn't want to actually _kill_ her. _What...what _does _he want with me? _

Illuzuis cackled again and finally began to sink into the dark substance of the Void, dragging Tiana down with him, much to her horror. "Eheh heh heh heh..." The horrible screech echoed throughout the entire realm, each tiny Voidable creature quivering and responding to its master's voice. NiGHTS squirmed under Reala's knees, but he firmly pushed him down again. "Heheh heh... It is time to make your choice, Reala," Illuzius taunted. "Follow me, alone, and sink into the darkness forever, or leave the girl to my own personal care. Everything is up to you now. No pressure... Eheh...eheheheheheh!!!"

"_Grrraugh_!" Reala snarled again, jerking his head away as the ends of Illuzius's golden head spikes at last receded into the thick black atmosphere below them. He had to follow them right now! But he couldn't. He couldn't leave... Was it _his _turn now? Would _he_ have to leave off...let his partner fall into the Master's clutches...be forced to fight against him...?

_NO._ Reala wrenched his horned head back up, steeling his gaze straight into his partner's face with rigid determination. _No. I promised...I said this wouldn't happen again. That we would never have to fight each other again. I promised we would never have to go through the same pain all over again. It doesn't matter--whether it's me or him. I _won't_ let this happen again!!!_

NiGHTS smiled, his senors squished outwards against the solid platform, his lighted, distant eyes poking against Reala's defenses. It was a smile with no mirth in it--a fixed, creepy smile separate from the rest of him--such as Reala had never seen on his face before. Then, it slowly faded...and he began to speak.

"Master Illuzius..." His voice was soft, yet distant and otherworldly. "...Reala has betrayed us."

A chord struck in Reala's heart at those terrible, familiar words...

"He doesn't value our world. He doesn't care about our wondrous realm...our Void..." NiGHTS paused for a moment, as if gasping for breath, his body shuddering, virulently. The words slid out of him as rattling oaths of death. "...Our beautiful...chaos..."

_SMACK!_

NiGHTS's face flew to the side, slamming once again on the hard marble-like surface of the platform as Reala retracted his trembling arm. He held it there, frozen, the ripped pieces of his sleeve dangling off at the elbow, his cuff slipping down and exposing the thin stem of the end of his arm.

NiGHTS, too, was paralyzed against the ground. His eyes were closed, his arms spread out over the smooth surface, the red bump welting on his cheek. Then, his eyes gradually opened again. And opened. And opened. His lips parted and his lungs squeezed out what remained of his breath. His eyes were clear, watery indigo...dilated with sudden and terrible shock. Slowly, his head turned back up to look into his brother's face bearing down on him, cold and stoic, yet belying the turbulence churning just under the surface. _Oh... Oh... Oh my...God..._

Reala suddenly wrenched his head away, unable to look at NiGHTS's expression anymore...his almond eyes watery, all the whites showing, his face pale, ghastly, stricken to the spot. It was disgusting--just like that girl's miserable mother. Unable to face the truth.

NiGHTS felt his chest--his heart--constricting...squeezing in on itself, tightly, painfully. It all came back now. It was like some kind of nightmare. His own nightmare. The first nightmare of his very own. Like in the Forbidden Nightopia. Everything was so twisted and ripped to pieces and _wrong_. And _he_ was the one..._He _was the one...

Carefully, Reala moved off, crawling back, off of NiGHTS's legs and pulling himself up onto his feet. Then he turned his back. He couldn't watch. He might lose control over his emotions again. He'd just have to wait for it to settle and get back to normal...

NiGHTS pulled his own torso up, folding his long legs underneath him. Was Reala...really going to leave him now? He was probably angry...after all that he'd done. He'd fought him. He'd fought him, even though he never wanted to fight him. It was fuzzy, as if it had happened to someone else, in another time, in another life...but NiGHTS knew, definitely, that it had been him. _He _had done all those terrible things...nearly given himself to the Void Master...let him capture Tiana...hurt Reala... _He _had done it.

At last, he was beginning to gain back the use of his senses, and the tears began to slide out of his lower eyelids. He felt them on his skin, adding a salt sting to his left cheek. "Oh...oh my God..." His own voice came out...so soft and feeble, as if trying to establish its hold again. "Oh my God... Oh my... H-how...how...how could I have..."

NiGHTS looked up to see the wavery image of Reala's back...the plain red backing to his jacket, the curving hooks of his sensors, with those darker red stripes... His heart clutched again, and he nearly doubled over frontwards. This was it. He'd worked so hard for so long to finally have this...at last, to have Reala back. To have him here, whole again...healed...the way it used to be...and he had nearly put all of that in danger all over again. Torn it apart... His brother...his partner...he'd worked so hard for.

"Reah...la..." _I'm sorry_. "R-Ree...ah...la..."

Reala crossed his arms.

"I...I can't believe... I can't believe I... I...can't... I...can't believe..." NiGHTS's face fell down into his gloved hands, soaking them in tears. "I never meant to... I don't know why... I can't believe...I did that. I just...can't believe..."

That was it. He couldn't listen to this anymore. It took all the strength Reala possessed not to whirl around and smack his partner a second time. His mouth snapped over the sharp edges of his words.

"And you think you're better than that, huh?!"

NiGHTS froze, stricken a second time. His face lifted a centimeter away from his hands, eyes white and still with madness. Even the tears on his cheeks halted in their flow.

Reala lowered his head, clenching his hands down at his sides, reigning in his rage and channeling it into dark words. "You think you're above that. It couldn't possibly happen to you. You're better than that. Aren't you. You'd never be so foolish."

_Reala_. At last, NiGHTS was beginning to realize. This was the same thing that had happened to Reala. The very same thing. To become changed...by the compatible Master. He...probably felt the same way.

The tears were drying over NiGHTS's cheeks, though the left one still stung, as a reminder. He couldn't believe that all this time, he might have been thinking that way. Even while insisting that Reala wasn't inferior. He'd had that sense. "Reala succumbed to Wizeman's influence, but I would never do that."

He looked up again, pulling his hands away from his face...and found himself looking into his own back. They were the same. Just the same. Neither was weaker or stronger. And while it felt uncomfortable to NiGHTS to know that he had this weakness inside him...to know that he was always fallible and susceptible...that his will could be bent and broken...it was a weakness that he would have to live with. _I'm...just like Reala._

Slowly, NiGHTS dragged his limp body to his feet...then stood firmly against the smooth ground of the platform. The tears had all stopped now, and he felt almost...stronger somehow. He was weak...and he knew he was weak. And from that knowledge came a kind of strength.

Reala finally turned around, when he noticed that NiGHTS had been silent for a while. His anger had distilled in the silence. And when he turned, he found himself facing a surprisingly determined-looking NiGHTS.

NiGHTS met his gaze...and didn't cower away from it. It was his, after all. They had now shared the experience. And now he understood. NiGHTS nodded his head, firmly, just once...and that was all that was needed. He was changed. In a matter of a few minutes, everything had changed between them. _Now_, at last, everything was back to the way it had been before. Reala hadn't been the only one in need of healing. Their eyes met, and they had no need for words. The feelings and ideas were transmitted between them...forgiveness...determination...understanding.

"Let's go," Reala said. And NiGHTS knew exactly what he meant. And so, together, they shot off--a purple and red comet streaking down...into the endless abyss of the Void.

(-)

_I'm going to die now._

Smothered in the heavy, thick flesh of Illuzius's tentacle, Tiana had no other choice but to reflect on her fate. She'd already thought about this before...but last time, she hadn't gotten a clear moment to reflect. At least dying like this would be easier...suffocating in the enfolding darkness instead of being torn apart by Voidable creatures. Reala would try to save her. She knew that. Even if he had to go against his own spirit-partner, he would attempt to save her. But what could he do? His power was weak against the Voidables by itself. That's why he needed to Dualize with her in the first place. Her mother...her world...everything that was so important to her now...was going to disappear.

_I wish...I wish I'd...paid more attention...to everyone...everything...around me. While I had the chance... I'm never...going to get to see it again..._

Tiana lowered her head just a little bit, since the binds didn't allow her much movement...and suddenly, a pair of colored lights caught the corner of her eyes. A red and a blue star...trailing sparkle dust behind them. Small glowing lights, like the twinkle of Christmas bulbs, growing steadily closer and closer...and with them, a spark of hope leaped up in Tiana's heart.

She raised her head to them, though her hair was caught in the firm grip of the tentacle, and a smile spread over her face as she realized. _It's them. It's both of them. They're coming together._

Sure enough, in a matter of just a few seconds, the familiar shapes materialized out of the light--a red and a purple jester-creature, shooting through the air towards them, side by side. "_Illuzius_!" Reala's firm, hard voice burst out as they jetted towards him with all their might. "Give Tiana back to us!"

"So you've come." Tiana felt the vile rumble of the Void Master's voice on her back, and clenched her teeth against it. "Ah. And whatever happened to my loyal servant?"

Reala and NiGHTS came to a halt, their large feet dangling as they hung in suspension. NiGHTS felt the automatic tug on his spirit at the sight of his compatible Master again, but now, he recognized it, and shoved it back down to the bottom of his mind. "I won't let you control me," he spoke, with the same disgust and revulsion he realized that Reala must feel towards Wizeman now. "We're not going to let anything tear us apart again!"

Reala suddenly felt a small sunburst of affection and pride in his brother, and if they hadn't been hovering in the middle of a warped dimension before a towering enemy, he just might have hugged him then.

NiGHTS felt a similar burst of strength--almost like the bolstering confidence he had felt while defying Wizeman's manipulations, only this time, it was a much greater triumph. It was no sweat for him to go up against Wizeman--but to defy the natural feelings of connection he had with the Void took real endurance. Suddenly, he had an appreciation for Reala like he'd never had before...he realized exactly what he had had to go through, and more than once at that.

The satisfied feelings faded as Reala focused his attention on the teenage girl still wrapped in constricting coils high above them. And a boiling anger filled in to replace them. "Leave Tiana alone!" he snapped. "She has nothing to do with this!"

"Oh, really?" Illuzius taunted. "I believe she has everything to do with this." His tentacles bristled and stiffened on either side of him, as if preparing to strike. "Without your precious Explorer, you are useless against the power of the Void. You know that as well as I. You have no hope of defeating me on your own."

NiGHTS tensed every fiber of his body, preparing to strike. Suddenly, the sound of Illuzius's voice had absolutely no effect on him. Nobody was going to call Reala useless and get away with it.

Reala's eyes met the wide, brown eyes of the girl he had come to bond with, between the frazzled strands of her hair. No. There was no way he was going to let this happen. There was no way he was going to abandon her again...to fail her again...to loose a part of himself...again. Not now, when it had only just returned. Never. He'd do everything in his capacity. He'd fight to within an inch of his life. Whatever it took. Anything was better than to lose her! Reala tightened his hands into determined fists, steeling his body for the inevitable battle. It was time now. Now, or never again.

"...I'm not on my own," he spoke through gritted teeth. "I'm never on my own!"

And with that, both he and NiGHTS shot forward, in challenge, as if the same thoughts and actions had ignited within both of their minds at the exact same time. They pushed themselves into spiraling dashes, becoming no more than a pair of sparking comets hurtling uncontrollably towards their final, explosive destination.

"Fools!" Illuzius's voice boomed out, his massive body swaying back slightly in recoil.

Tiana gasped as the tentacle that held her lashed backwards, higher into the air, jerking to a stop just above the Void Master's head. The metallic gold spikes of his head were so close that if she had use of her arms, she could reach out and touch one. Her body instinctively clutched, imagining the sensation of one of those thick spikes thrusting through her stomach.

"The girl is in my possession! She is at my mercy, and if you choose to come against me, at any time I could--"

But before he could even finish his hostage threat, the two Guardians had slammed against the invisible barrier just in front of the long, royal purple banner of cloth between the flaps of his cloak, and immediately, they began to push against it with all of their combined strength.

"_Gah_!" Illuzius's body shot backwards with a surprising force and speed, the thick fabric of the Void coursing and swirling around him.

Tiana screamed as her body once again whiplashed through the air, as if she was riding an erratic roller coaster. Only her life was now in the hands of a cruel Master who could choose to let her slip at any moment. Her heart raced within her chest, and every muscle in her body tightened as she prepared for the blow that would end her life.

The rest of Illuzius's tentacles immediately snapped to attention, swinging through the air in front of his body, protectively. "_You morons_!" he screamed, and his terrible shrieks chilled every pore of Tiana's body, and made every small Voidable creature squirm. "You _idiots_! You cannot hope to defy me! I will never let you bring down my dimension! If you resist, your lives shall be forfeit! And if not your lives, then the life of this human girl whom you so depend on! You shall not prevail, as my own life depends upon it!"

NiGHTS and Reala didn't hesitate for even a second. A blast of piercing, skin-peeling heat met them like a wall of needles, and yet they clenched their bodies closer into furious drill dashes, slicing through the oppressive heaviness of the atmosphere. This was probably one of Illuzius's "settings"--a hostile environment created around him for protection. And they would just have to bear it and move through it as quickly as possible.

Reala squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the white-hot air searing back against his skin. It was almost too much--every tiny millimeter of his body was acutely stinging at once. But he fought back against it with every drop of willpower he possessed. NiGHTS threw all of his efforts into breaking through the blaze along with him, struggling against the urge to scream out in agony.

Then at last, they felt a sudden blast, almost a suction, as cool air hit their bodies, and they passed through to the other side of the atmosphere.

But Illuzius wasn't about to let them waltz on over and smash into him again this time. All seven of his remaining tentacles curled and slithered forward as they approached, ready at any moment to lash out and strike anyone within their range.

The Guardians paused for a moment, gasping for breath, and took a moment to decide on a course of action. They would have to move very quickly to dodge between the multiple strong, thick tentacles, and even if they split up, that still left each of them to deal with three--or four--at once.

Reala took in a slow, deep breath, feeling the cool air spread throughout his body, refreshing and renewing it after the excessive heat ordeal. At last, he consciously noticed NiGHTS beside him, still currently bent over and recovering his breath as well, the soft purple colors of his head sparsely illuminated in the immense darkness surrounding them. "NiGHTS..."

NiGHTS's body snapped upwards. It was actually the first time he'd noticed Reala, too, since the battle began. Up until now, it had felt almost as if they had been fighting and resisting with one mind. They were separate minds, souls, and personalities now, but just as close and connected as ever before.

"NiGHTS..." Reala repeated, as if solidifying their individuality. "We need to be fast. Very, very fast. The fastest you can possibly go. I think it's best if we separate, and fly in different directions, but that still won't help much. One of us is going to be fighting off more that three of his arms at once. But we need to focus on Tiana. We need to get her out of there first before we attack him directly again."

"Yeah." NiGHTS finally caught his breath again and pulled himself up to look his brother in the eye. He could sense the anxiety in his voice and in his heart, and he shared in it, through their now cemented connection. "I'll do it," he gravely volunteered. "I'll take them. I'm fast. You go get her."

Reala's immediate impulse was to object--but he could tell, instantly, that NiGHTS had only offered out of his own concern for him. "...Okay," his gruff voice responded. "You take the four on the right. I take the three and Tiana on the left."

"Got it."

The two Guardians tensed their muscles, leaning their bodies forward in the air, almost as if preparing for a heated race. Illuzius's body and tentacles wavered before them, almost in slow-motion, caught in the single moment before the battle truly began.

And then...with the echo of immediacy ringing through their hearing senses, NiGHTS and Reala bulleted forward, with all the speed and power they possessed.

Tiana turned her head from high above, just over the edge of the tentacle, her face pale and sickened from being tossed around so much. Her eyes squeezed at the sight of the Guardians' tiny colored forms careening towards the thick black whips that awaited them. Then she squeezed them all the way closed.

_Fuwoosh!_ It had begun. NiGHTS shot diagonally upwards, just barely missing one large tentacle that swooped down toward his head. Reala forced his own body to shoot off in the opposite direction. As much as both of them hated to separate like this and leave the other to face his own peril alone, it was the only thing to be done.

Reala gritted his teeth against the battering wind and the whipping appendages that glanced by his legs and his sensors. He maneuvered between the oncoming tentacles like a skier shooting down a slope dotted with trees.

_Tiana...Tiana..._ His eyes were alert at every moment for an opening in which to reach her and tear the tentacle from around her. But it seemed that each time he dodged another attack, he was pushed right back to where he had been before.

NiGHTS sucked in his own breath and concentrated entirely on weaving between his own four tentacles. Left! Right! Down! Right! Down-left! Up-left! Every dodge required a burst of speed, his body spinning and emitting showers of light every half-second. He'd done this before--dodging Wizeman's flying meteors and vortexes of water, but they had only come straight at him. Illuzius's tentacles were coming from all directions--behind him, and below him, and above him. He had to be on his toes at every millisecond. A few times, he only narrowly escaped being smashed downwards into the abyss of the Void below them.

NiGHTS's teeth sank into his tongue with determination, his face twisting rigidly against the wind. It was time. He _had _to do this. Until Reala managed to free Tiana, he couldn't slip his concentration. He had to remain focused and acutely aware of every single space around him. It was a battle of wills.

Reala felt the burn of bitter frustration tugging in his chest and arms. He'd gotten a brief glimpse of Tiana's frazzled hair--there, up next to one of the Void Master's enormous golden head-spikes--but yet the three tentacles on the left side persistently sent him dodging and swerving back to the same spot where he'd begun. He had to do something unexpected--he would have to out-maneuver them to get ahead at all...but the space between them gave him little room at all to deviate from the same dodging patterns he'd been repeating for the past twenty seconds.

He tried to push himself a little too far upwards, and one down-swinging tentacle fiercely grazed his right leg, leaving a stinging burn. Reala growled to himself. He was getting reckless, he knew, but _something _had to be done! Something needed to be done right now! They couldn't keep this up for such a long time. Their drill-dashing energy would run out. There were no rings here in the Void to replenish dash energy. He needed to do something...unexpected.

Almost simultaneously, NiGHTS also began to feel the low tug of his dash energy gradually depleting. There was nothing he could do. If he didn't land a hit on Illuzius soon, one of his arms would get a hold of him, and then it would all be over. Another of the long, thick appendages came whipping through the air towards him, and in an instant, he noticed something.

_The eyeballs! _In a sudden, violent reflex, NiGHTS shoved his legs forward, braking himself as the whiplash snapped fatally towards him...and planted the thrust of his heels straight into the squishy, open eye-bulb on the end of the attacking tentacle.

With a small shriek of pain, the tentacle fell away, withering and flopping uselessly beside Illuzius's massive body. The other three on the right side twitched fiercely in retaliation, and NiGHTS just barely managed to dash to the side out of their way. He paused for a moment, breathless.

"..._Reala_!" he shrieked, hoping his partner could hear him across the vast expanse, or at least recieve his thoughts. "It's the eyeballs!!! Attack the eyeballs!!!"

But neither of them got a chance.

_Pshshhhhhhhhhhh!_ Something hot, sticky, and burning suddenly burst over NiGHTS's body, searing into his eyes and temporarily blinding him. He screamed, tearing at his face and trying to catch his bearings. It was another attack--some new trick the Master had just released from his repertoire in retaliation. But he never got a chance to figure out what it really was before it struck.

"_Kggaugh_!" The buffeting impact of one of Illuzius's tentacles slammed straight over NiGHTS's stomach, sending him reeling and spinning backwards through the atmosphere, a helpless wounded doll floating in the endless Void. He wanted to cry. He wanted to cry, but his eyes stung too badly. He had failed.

Reala knew what it was. The instant it hit him, he clamped his eyes shut against it. Though it burned sharply against his skin, he could still feel out the vibrations of the flailing tentacles around him through his sensors. Acid rain. _Very _acidic. This was another of Illuzius's "settings". He'd resorted to his protective shields again after taking another hit. This information immediately sparked through Reala's mind like a piece of a recovered memory. But once it had finished processing…he realized what had happened.

…_NiGHTS!!!_ Panic seized hold of him again. NiGHTS had been hit. NiGHTS had fallen out. NiGHTS was in danger. Tiana was in danger. He had to do something! He had to do something! He _had_ to do something…!

One long arm whipped through the air, curling and slapping itself around him in the midst of his panic…and out of the sheer desperation and struggle to survive, Reala did the first thing that popped into his frazzled mind.

In a miraculous starburst of white lights, his body instantly stretched and transformed…and a long, ferocious dragon came roaring out of the fading shower, bearing its pointed white fangs and shaking the acid rain from its fluffy black-and-red mane. Reala had morphed into dragon form again.

Without a second thought, he sank his fangs into the black muscled material of the tentacle, tearing it away from him and flinging it aside, back towards its body. As much as he hated being a mythical creature, Reala did have to admit, his dragon form was much more powerful and useful for large-scale combat.

He thrust his long, snakelike body forward, and although he was moving more slowly, dragging his stretched-out coils through the air, he could fight back against the forest of tentacles that assaulted him, grabbing them with his talon-claws, tearing at them with his teeth, and tossing them this way and that out of his path as he made his way towards Tiana. Even as the other three arms on the right side flung across the breadth of the Void Master's body to join his efforts, Reala ripped and slashed and yanked them out of the way with everything he had.

Two of the arms managed to wrap themselves around his hind claws, but as soon as he turned around, piercing their vulnerable eye-bulbs with his front claws, they squealed in anguish and withered away, releasing him again.

She was getting closer now…closer…so close… Reala focused both of his narrowed reptilian eyes on the tuft of ragged brown hair poking above the black coil next to the Master's head. He was almost there…

In the distance, NiGHTS slowly began to right himself and float back around, clutching one arm around his horriblly bruised stomach. Carefully and reluctantly, he cracked his eyes open, resisting their prodding sting, and lifted his round, lengthy head in the hopes of salvation. In the back of his mind, he could feel that spark of hope—that force alight in his brother's heart that drove him forward. Through his blurred, pastel vision, NiGHTS could barely make out the shape of something long and red and white approaching the golden head of the Void Master, as his remaining four tentacles madly undulated just below him.

Reala yanked his coiling body forward through the atmosphere with as much aerodynamic speed as it woud allow. This was it. This was the moment. Now. Everything depended upon it. _Right now!_

Illuzius's body recoiled sharply, intensifying the deluge of his setting, in a last desperate attempt to turn him away. But it was no use now. Reala's dragon body blasted through the oncoming sheet of acid rain, grasping the knots of the captor tentacle in his mouth. His claw-talons anchored on to the remaining coil…and with one mighty backwards yank from his head, they broke free, sending Tiana's body sailing through the air in a terrifying free-fall.

The aggravated shrieks of the Void Master blasted through the realm again, like a shockwave, but before he even had a moment to catch his bearing and retaliate, Reala seized his tentacle in one hand and stabbed his front talon into its eyeball with as much force as he possibly could, twisting it and grinding it in deep. Illuzius shrieked again, and a black ooze squirted out of the psychedelic eyeball like blood before it suddenly burst, leaving the appendage utterly dead and lifeless.

"KIIIIIIIIYAAAAAAAA!!!"

"_Eeeeeeeeeeeee!!!_" Tiana's own screams echoed her abductor's as she felt the air—or Void material—whizzing past her in a gathering fatal momentum. There was no time for thought or meditation. Everything was immediate, sudden, fast action. Action without thought. Action stemming straight from the heart. The soul.

Instantly, Reala morphed back into his normal form, in another spray of sparkly white energy, and spiraled into a mad dash after Tiana, with a characteristic high-pitched _kshhhhh_. In another second, he had once again caught up, yanking his body out of the dash just in time to catch her in his arms and speed them both away from the ensuing rage-dance of the bristling tentacles.

Tiana took a deep breath, at last feeling the freedom of the cool air. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to ignore the tugging of her hair whipping back with the wind. She'd had no room for anything but panic when she'd been falling, but now that she had a moment to think, it felt so good to finally be out of the Void Master's clutches. She could still feel the throbbing impressions on her chest and legs where his tentacle had been wrapped. But now, the arms underneath her were firm and reassuring.

Tiana slowly opened her eyes. Reala had caught her again. And this time, she wasn't at all surprised. She smiled, though Reala was flying so fast that he didn't see. But then again, he didn't really need to. Each of them could feel the relief flooding through the other's heart. _Thank goodness_, Tiana thought, and she couldn't even tell if it was her thought or his.

The stinging rain had stopped, just two minutes ago. NiGHTS slowly blinked several times, washing the acid away. Everything was still a bit blurry, but at least now it was getting better. He could almost make out the details of something in the distance rapidly approaching him. He wrapped his arm tighter around his bruised waist and gingerly bent himself back upright. And then, with one more blink, it burst into view in vivid details right before him.

"_NiGHTS_!"

NiGHTS let out a sharp gasp as the slim red-and-white form of his spiritual brother suddenly jolted to a stop right in front of him, a familiar brown-haired girl in his arms, her blue dress a bit patched, her hair wildly disheveled. "R-Reala! Tiana!"

Tiana stared up him with wide, concerned eyes.

"Are you okay?" Reala spoke, and he seemed to be speaking for both of them. "You got hit pretty hard. I saw it."

NiGHTS pressed on his wound a little and grimaced. "Ah, I'll be okay. I've been in worse pain before in my life."

Reala's pearlescent face crinkled a tiny bit, and NiGHTS felt a tiny tug on the inside of his chest. _He's worried_, he realized. _He's worried about me. This is the first time… I don't want him to worry, especially now. He shouldn't have to worry about me. _

NiGHTS removed his arm and hung freely in the air again, though it gave him a particularly unpleasant pang in the middle of his stomach. "I'm okay. C'mon. Let's finish this guy off." He yanked his head forward, indicating Illuzius.

Reala turned, as if he'd forgotten that the towering Master was still there, folding Tiana closer to his chest. Their expressions simultaneously transformed into grim, pallid tension and determination. NiGHTS put on a similar tough face, though the throbbing of his bruise still tugged at the edges of his mouth.

Illuzius's body rocked and groaned, like a tall ship in a tempest, struggling to catch its balance again after half of its masts had been torn off. Four of his tentacles sagged, limply, down behind him—one on the right and three on the left—like giant black spaghetti noodles. The maroon flaps of his robe fluttered open. But the gold, crowned head and the three-crystal brooch remained intact…grim and steeled forever.

"Illuzius!" Reala called in challenge. "What do you have to say now? Not as weak as you thought we were, are we?"

Illuzius's tentacles bristled, batting the dark matter of the Void all around him. His spiked helm lowered just a bit, before his voice slid out once again.

"…You…know nothing." The voice was low…calm. The Void material seemed to shiver all around them—not from excitement or rage, but from a chill…a deep reverberation of feeling.

NiGHTS clenched his eyes shut and squeezed his sensors to prevent himself from listening to it, because the energy was just so naturally compelling to him. A shiver passed through his own heart, regardless.

Reala ground his teeth with frustration, and for a moment, he wished he had his dragon fangs back, just so he could roar at him. "Don't tell me what I know and don't know! _You _are the one who knows nothing!!! Because you obviously couldn't understand that Tiana and I are connected now, and _nothing_ can tear that away!!!"

Tiana's eyes closed, her head tucking down as Reala bent over her. A sudden warmth wrapped over her body—hot, but not to an uncomfortable level. And she knew it was coming from Reala's crystal. She felt a tug on her own soul, longing to Dualize. And she felt that if she just concentrated a little harder, she would…without even touching his hands.

Illuzius groaned again, wavering in the air, and that terrible, bitterly cold voice of his reverberated again, from the ends of his antenna-like head spikes. "Oh, but you know nothing…Nothing of the nature of your own existence. Let me tell you a little story…"

"We're _not _going to listen to your lies!!!" Reala snapped. "If you thought you'd trick us again with a stupid little story, you must think we're a bunch of gullible morons! If this is your last-ditch plan, it's just plain pathetic!"

Illuzius paused for a moment…then his voice rumbled forth again, deep and ominous. "Don't tell me you've never wondered about your origins…about how you came to be in this world…"

Reala cocked one eye socket, skeptically. _He's trying to draw me in_, he told himself. _He knows I don't remember that far back. There's no way that we can remember that far back. I remember…the rule is that NiGHTS and I can each only remember as far back as one human lifespan…though I can't remember even that far now, because of what happened to me. _His eyes narrowed. "You're a fool. No one knows what happened."

"I do." Illuzius's body floated very still…even his four tentacles stood stiff and tense. "You and your partner may only be able to remember a hundred years ago, if that. But _I _have been here, in the Void. For eternity. And I remember. Everything. About how you came to be…and how I myself came to be. About the Balance."

The Balance… Tiana turned her head back, glancing around Reala's shoulder, towards NiGHTS. The slim, purple creature was still shivering slightly and clutching both his stomach and his sensors. But he didn't say anything, or even indicate anything. He was too busy trying to block out the pain and the disastrous sensations…

_He knows what that is, right? He has to know what the Balance is. He's talked about it before. Even Reala said something about it before. It's like the energy that holds them together. Between the Dreaming and Waking Worlds. Right…? _

Reala's face contorted with frustration. The Balance… It had just popped out of his mouth a few times, but even he wasn't sure exactly what it meant. It had something to do with him and NiGHTS, and their respective realms. But that was all he knew for sure.

"…What do you know about NiGHTS and I?!" The protest burst from his mouth. "You don't know what happens between us! Like you said, you've been in the Void all your life!"

"At the beginning of the universe…" Illuzius's voice boomed forth, no longer high and teasing, but big and powerful. The little Voidables in the atmosphere around him squirmed again, their pinprick light-eyes glowing out from over his long, pointed shoulder bells. "At the beginning of time…when the world was first created…"

NiGHTS lifted his head, pulling his sensors back, opening wide, glowing blue eyes to the distance. Reala also lifted his white face to the Void Master, though he clenched his hands around Tiana's waist and under her knees at the same time, and took a mid-air stance with his legs, ready to break into flight at any second.

"…There was only one universe, one essence, one being…but that world found that it could not exist by itself. Energies and powers collided, conflicted, crashed against each other, and it began to tear apart. At last, the universe broke into the two realms—Waking and Dreaming…and so the spirit that had come into being to protect it also split into two. And the two separate parts were called NiGHTS and Reala."

_Is that…is that really true? _Confusion swirled behind Reala's aqua-blue eyes. _It sounds perfectly believable. NiGHTS even said he had a feeling that we used to be joined. That we used to be one being. Way in the beginning. The Balance…_

"But that wasn't all." The Void was alight with little stars now, just waiting to attend on their master. Concerned and gathering around him for support. "Those contradictions…those negative energies that had been born from their clashing turbulence…flew to separate sides and formed worlds—realms—of their own. The Dark Waking—Nightmare…and the Dark Dreaming—the Void. And the power that had formed them—the spirit with the power to tear the Guardian apart in the first place—also split. It became the two Masters of the dark realms…myself…and my brother, Wizeman."

_Wizeman_, Reala remembered. _Wizeman never said anything about any of this. Only that he planned to take over the Dreaming World and use it to penetrate into the Waking…to reach into the Waking. _

"We are the four realms!" Illuzius declared, out to the world, to the universe, his voice filling every space in the infinite expanse surrounding them. "Held together by the original energy of the universe that is the Balance. Neither side of the system must gain too much power over the other—the Dreaming and the Dark Dreaming, or the Waking and the Dark Waking. The Balance will then be disrupted, and the universe will begin to fall apart. However…"

And in that instant, NiGHTS realized. He gasped with the shock and horror of it all, ignoring the pain in his stomach, and the seductive wavelengths of energy curling and beckoning through his mind. He realized what was happening. What this had all been about from the start. Why Wizeman wanted to invade the Waking World…

"Unlike you Guardians, _we _are unable to travel between realms. We cannot make use of these human creatures as a link. In order to reach back to my brother, I must use my dark powers to conquer the Waking World, from which I will then be able to invade the Dreaming…and to reunite with my brother once again."

NiGHTS's face fell into his hands, trembling, almost sobbing. Hopeless.

The lights over Illuzius's golden shoulder-bars had grown into an enormous cloud of dots, extending endlessly above him and behind him…and between them, you could almost see the outlines of the dark creatures squirming and rubbing and wriggling against each other, crowding for space.

Reala clenched his teeth and tensed every muscle in his wiry body. They were gathering. Illuzius was using this story as a distraction while he mustered his forces, preparing for the final blow.

But it was true, he realized. Everything he had said was true. He could feel it in his heart. But that didn't change anything. Reala would stand and protect his realm—and this girl—no matter what the cost. No matter what the consequences might be. He wasn't going to fail them now, for anything.

He glared straight up into Illuzius's giant metallic head, the starlight of the Voidables reflecting off its surface…issuing his challenge. "I see what you're trying to do, Illuzius. And I'm not going to let you. I'm_ not _going to _let_ you!!!"

"_No_!!!" In the millisecond that Reala was about to shoot off, NiGHTS seized hold of his arm, yanking him back with all of his might, despite his injured body.

Reala turned his head to see the heart-rending sight of his brother panting and twisting his face in agony.

"N-No…Reala, don't! They're…they're just like us! They're the same as us! They're just trying to reach each other again…they want to be together! Just…like us!"

Reala scowled and tried to tug him off. "I know. But I can't just let him take over my realm because of that. …Let me go, NiGHTS."

NiGHTS's hand trembled over the white, stretchy sleeve of Reala's upper arm. One part of his mind feared it was all just a trick—he was letting himself be controlled again. He was betraying Reala again… But the other half felt entirely lucid and sane…and entirely sure that this didn't feel like the right thing to do. "They want to be together…they just want to see each other! And you're going to destroy that!" NiGHTS could feel his soul squeezing in on his chest, tears stinging just at the edges of his eyes, but unable to slide out. "And they're never going to get to see each other…to even _talk_ to each other…for the rest of their lives! _Never_!"

"And what am I supposed to do?!" Reala tore his arm out of NiGHTS's grap again, twirling around and facing him, Tiana still in his arms. "Just stand here and watch him destroy the world I worked so hard to gain back?! The world that I'm supposed to protect?! The world that I-- Care…about?"

Tiana glanced up at him, knowingly.

"But…" NiGHTS felt so helpless, weak, and pained all of a sudden. There was nothing he could do. There was nothing any of them could do. It was either Illuzius or the Waking World. They couldn't save both at the same time.

NiGHTS finally retracted his shaking hand, and clenched it into a fist. _There's nothing we can do…_ The Masters would be separated from each other forever. Never even knowing the other closest being to them in the world. The one they loved…

His eyes stung again, and he had to pull his head in, burying his face, just to assuage it. _If I had to be separated from Ree like that…forever…I think I would die of loneliness. _

Reala noticed the galaxy of Voidable eyes swirling and pulsing forward, waiting for their master's command to attack. They would overwhelm them. Something had to be done. Now. They couldn't delay it any longer. If Illuzius had hoped to drive another stake of disagreement between them, he had done his job. After all, that's what the Masters' powers did—separate the Dreaming and Waking. But they had to be strong. Now more than ever, they needed to be strong. Together.

"NiGHTS…" Reala turned, and NiGHTS raised his head to meet his eyes again. The thought, the feeling, they shared mutually, and it was near impossible to say who thought it first. _It's okay. It's going to be okay. To save the world…to maintain the Balance. It needs to be done. We're together. We'll always be together. As are they. We are all connected by the Balance. And no matter how far apart we are, we are always connected. _

NiGHTS finally pulled away, averting his eyes…and nodded. He would help. He would try, to the best of his ability. To protect what mattered most to him.

Illuzius lifted two tentacles, high into the air. The Voidables flashed, preparing to strike.

Reala glanced down at Tiana. Here they were, at the very edge of the world, and it felt like ages ago that they had first met, in a small alleyway in the city of East Bellbridge. It almost felt as if they had known each other all their lives. _Now_, it was time.

"Tiana?" He looked down. It was so close. It felt so close.

Tiana smiled. "I'm ready." At last, she could let it go…let out what had been on her mind for the past thirty minutes. That feeling…that deep, true, spiritual feeling.

Her hands reached up for him, all on their own…and at the same time, he curled his up around her to meet them. Another brilliant shockwave of blue light erupted out from the place where they touched, the very center white-hot and blinding.

NiGHTS was so close to it that his body contracted in reaction, and he pressed one arm over his eyes in an attempt to block it out. The glow swelled and crashed out like a tsunami, passing straight over Illuzius and his Voidable army, making the gathering creatures squirm and struggle with pain. But Tiana and Reala didn't even notice.

Tiana could see a soft, glowing light of swirling colors passing before her eyes, calling to her. Soft curls of energy and feeling. A light wind brushed through her unkempt hair, just like it had the first time. Only now it felt so familiar…so natural. The swirls began to solidify…and normally this is when she would stop, bump against a blackened abyss and open her eyes to find that they were Reala's. But now…the wall…the wall in his mind was gone. Tiana felt herself moving and spreading through a new area, a new world. Delving into those spaces he had blocked her from before. Those emotions and memories on the other side of Reala's mental wall. He didn't _have_ a mental wall anymore. He was melded. It felt so natural, so comfortable.

Tiana had never felt so _solid _while Dualized before. Her spirit was almost completely entwined with the spirit reaching out and embracing her…and it was like she wasn't really even Dualized at all. She wasn't just a spirit in Reala's body. She _was_ Reala. And Reala was her.

Reala felt only a light tug on the outside of her body, before she knew that the Dualization was complete. She could feel her soul merging and solidifying into one. Filling every space and every crack that she'd kept blocked off and carefully, strictly guarded for so long. It was dangerous—those parts were very vulnerable and tender—but in some ways, it felt wonderful to have them reached again, by another being. By a being from outside. By a being that was no longer outside at all. An Explorer.

At last, the light was beginning to fade…to retract back into a steady, soft glow in the center of her blue Soul Crystal.

Carefully, NiGHTS brought his arm down. His injuries didn't seem to hurt anymore, as if the light had cured him. But that was the furthest thing from his mind when he first saw it. He moved closer, to the right side, to see it better.

Reala hovered in the air before him, holding his hands out, cupped around the aura of light emanating from his crystal. But there was something very different about him…or _her_.

The sleeves of her jacket had automatically mended themselves, growing and stretching to fill in the tears and shreads that had been there since her capture…and her body…was shaped just a little bit different, the chest and shoulders slightly narrower, the hips softly curved. Her head turned to look at him…and through her deep, glowing blue-brown eyes, NiGHTS was mystified. And suddenly, he couldn't even tell if he was looking at Reala's face…or Tiana's. They were one in the same.

_Dualization_, he realized. But this was more than simple Dualization. _Complete Dualization. One hundred percent Dualization. A full mixing and merging of the two souls into one. Ohmygosh… Even _I _have never been able to do that. I can Dualize with two Dreamers at once…but I could never reach this level of fusion_ _with a single human. Reala _can_. _

NiGHTS was completely awestruck. He couldn't think of anything to say. What could he say to this new being—this strange new creature that had been born out of a combination of his two friends' souls? For the first time in a very long while, he felt utterly apart.

"**NiGHTS…"**

NiGHTS shivered at the sound. Her voice was like two voices in one—light and feminine and yet deep and serious at the same time. And once again, he couldn't determine if it was Reala's or Tiana's voice.

"**Come with me." **She held out her hand—pearl-white and pale peach.

NiGHTS looked down at his own white-gloved hand. Then nodded. He hovered up right beside his friend and soul-mate. His power was needed too.

Illuzius was silent through all of this, confusion and panic spiraling through his multifaceted mind. What was going on?! Had this ever happened before?! _How _had this happened?! What was going to happen?! Everything was going to be destroyed! Again! Everything that he'd built back up…just trying to reach his brother. Everything that he'd fought for…

"_Noooooo_!!!" his screechy voice crackled out from the ends of his sensor-spikes again. "You can't do this! You can't crush everything that I've created again, to get to this point! You can't stop me from taking over the Waking World! From being able, at last, to reach into the Dreaming… From feeling the energy again, of my other half in the world. Of Wizeman! I won't let you take it away from me again!!!"

"**I understand." **Reala/Tiana's voice was louder, echoing in the now emptied expanse of the Void, amplified by its dual nature and the power of the merged soul that swelled behind it. **"I understand how you feel. That need to be together. I know more than anyone." **

"Then _please_!!!" Illuzius's voice was wild now, desperate, painful. "Don't do this to me!!!"

"**We won't destroy you." **Reala/Tiana reached to the side, slipping her hand into NiGHTS's. **"We both know that you can never be destroyed. But there's a better way." **

Illuzius's tentacles flicked a bit, weakly. "There _is _no other way." His voice hardened again, vengeful, malicious. "There _is_ no other way! You'll tear my body apart! You'll reduce my Voidables—the extensions of my soul—the creations of my very existence—the _world_ of my own spiritual making—to a smoking abyss of nothingness! _There is no other way_!!!"

The Voidables bristled with their father's sentiments, preparing to swarm on the Guardians again, eyes lighting up, black pointed teeth gnashing.

"I will _never _re-connect with my brother again! You will tear me away from ever reaching him! _When I only want to see him again_!!!"

At last, the Voidables burst forward, rushing and coursing and yelping and tripping one over the other in a mass of wispy air and essence, bearing their sharp edges, their claws, their teeth, their spearheads, and every other deadly weapon conceivable. They aimed directly for the joined body of Reala and Tiana, towards the light that had assaulted them, that had rose up to challenge them, fighting for their lives…for the life of the being who had given them life. Now, the time of their resistence was at hand.

Though NiGHTS trembled and quivered at the sight of their fatal edges rushing straight towards them, the warm closeness of the joined being beside him naturally imbued him with a sense of steadiness and purpose. Whatever was going to happen next, no matter where they were going, what was going to happen to them…they were going to be there together. The power of togetherness. Just being together…

"**Be together!!!" **

The overwhelming, reverberating sound of Reala/Tiana's joined voice exploded out, in a cloud of mushroom smoke, rattling the very molecules of Void before them. She extended her arms…and then, suddenly, the entire universe seemed to flash into blinding, bright white mist.

NiGHTS shielded his face again. What was happening? He couldn't see anything. He looked to the side, and he couldn't even see her hand next to his anymore. Everything was gone. He clenched his body, preparing to feel the razor-sharp bite of the Voidable army tearing through the smokescreen and slicing him to bits. But there was nothing. It was a place beyond…beyond the Void, or the Waking, or even his own realm. A space, an energy, a power he had never yet experienced. For a moment, it glowed blue. And then…it faded.

Blackness began to bleed through the pure mist again. A few shapes were taking form. And then all at once, it sucked away, leaving the nothingness. The Void.

The joined being of Reala and Tiana still hovered there...silent…distracted…blazing, multicolored eyes fixed on the image of the entity far before them.

An enormous, spiritual orb hung in the midst of the blackness, suspended, celestial. Its maroon and orange streaks of colors blurred and mixed and churned and faded—fluctuations of energy, of emotion and thought. It was alive. No doubt it was alive. It could speak. But it had no more words for them.

At last, it began to sink. Down…down…it sank into the abyss of its own existence. Fading…retracting…nothing but pure energy now, waiting for a chance to rebuild. Just like his brother. It sank…and sank…and sank… Until at last, the only faint light left of its swirling sun-colors was smothered in the blankness. Once again, Illuzius had been defeated.

For a soft, filtering, cerebral moment, no one was able to breathe. The three spirits hung there, suspended in space and time, beyond the realm, beyond any fabrication of their minds.

Then NiGHTS took a breath.

The body next to him was enveloped in a weak glow, sparkles trickling out, like the energy spray of morphing. And then there was Tiana, also hovering, miraculously, in the air.

They had separated now, and Reala's body reverted into its natural shape, his own azure eyes staring. Not outside. He wasn't staring at anything in the world surrounding him, or even just spacing out. It was like was looking _inside_. He was searching around inside of himself for something, his pupils flickering back and forth…waiting…trying to find it again.

Tiana was similarly transfixed. She couldn't take her own eyes off of his…as if she was searching for it too. Waiting for it.

And at last, Reala lifted his arms again, without even feeling it or knowing it, and pressed the tips of his fingers to the blue crystal on his chest.

Gently, carefully, lovingly, he began to pull them back…tugging the edge of a brilliant golden light with them. He extended his arms…and merging, blossoming, straight out of the center of his crystal…came a glowing yellow orb, with an intricate pointed crystal-star in the middle. The Ideya of Hope. Her Ideya of Hope. It was complete, at last.

With a solemn, ceremonious extension, he held it out, above the surface of his palms, towards her. Now, it was time to hand it over. It was time to let it go. It was his duty, as Guardian of the Waking World. Completion.

Tiana was naturally attracted to the essence of the ideya…her soul…the final piece of her heart that had been missing all this time. This special, sacred light was hers now. It was so beautiful… The most beautiful thing that she had ever set eyes on.

Hope… Hope… The hope that she had created herself…that she had been creating all along. Not in her own heart…but in Reala's. The symbol, the feeling, the very essence of their connection, that had developed, and now shone brightly before them. Their frustration with each other's noncompliance…their banter over breakfast…their laughter while dancing and playing games…their awe as new and wondrous things were revealed…thier destruction, the agony of the final reality…their sorrow at the prospect of death…the joy of their triumph over Illuzius…

Tiana reached up for it…just longing to touch it…to feel it all again, inside of her. Her cherished memories. Their cherished memories together. She looked up into Reala's familiar face…and all at once she came to her senses, with a shriek of terror.

_NO!_

And flung herself straight around Reala's waist, battering the ideya aside. Clenching onto the back of his red jacket as if she might rip it apart again, pressing her head into his chest.

Reala flopped back a little bit in surprise, his mouth letting out a small "ah".

Tiana couldn't stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks now. Everything…all of that…everything was going to end. It was ending. It was all coming to an end. And she couldn't let it!!!

Reala frowned confusedly down at the familiar brown-haired girl squeezing stubbornly around his body, and felt a tiny, cool spot of dampness blossom just below his crystal. "What's the matter with you?"

"…You're going to leave!" At last Tiana let it burst out of her—the worry, the desperate fear. "You're going to disappear, aren't you?! As soon as I take that ideya, you're going to disappear! You never told me, but I know it! I'll never be able to see you again!!!" Tiana felt her heart clench again. _Never again… I'll never see him again… After all we've been through…together… _

Reala was completely baffled for a moment. He was still coming back to himself after that whole surreal encounter, and this was just blowing his mind. As far he could feel back into the past, no Explorer had ever done _this_…though it had been an extremely long time since one had actually reached the end of the quest. "Well…I guess that is true. Once you are complete, my work is done. You no longer need me. And so you will no longer be able to see me. But it's not like I'm really leaving or anything. I have to move on and find a new Explorer now, but I'll still be living in the Waking World here. You just won't know I'm there…"

Tiana only continued to sob into his jacket…and although their emotional connection was faint now that the Ideya of Hope had been released from his soul, Reala could still feel a little twinge of her pain. At last, he raised one hand and placed it over her small, bristly head in comfort…stroking back and forth.

And she sobbed and shook and sobbed…

"…I'm going to miss you," she finally spoke, once she was able to catch her breath. She lifted her head towards him, though she was only able to see the rounded underside of his head. "Are you going to miss me?"

Reala paused in his stroking and leaned his head back in consideration for a moment. "…Probably not."

_Smack!_

"Ah!"

Tiana thrust her hand straight into Reala's stomach, sending him reeling backwards. "_What_?!" she screamed, her hair wild, her face streaked with tears, but no longer crying. "After making me go through hell and changing my entire life and completely merging with my soul, and after _everything _we've done together, you're not even going to miss me?!"

Reala coughed and clutched his stomach, but when he lifted his head again, he smiled. "Feeling better now?"

"Arrrrgh…" Tiana clenched her hands into fists. _There he goes again with that…reverse psychology, or whatever it is. No wonder he's so frustrating… Trying to get me to stop crying by making me angry… _She almost laughed a little. _Well, it worked, didn't it? _

Reala continued to smile as he straightened himself out. He had to find a way to say it now, or he'd never get the chance. "But…really, I…really appreciate everything you've done. I…well, you're an Explorer, so it's only natural…" He started to play with the end of his right sensor, awkwardly. "You're really a good kid…you know, you're the first one after I've been blinded by Wizeman for so long, so you're special in that sense… I mean, you got me to… You helped… The process…" He sighed with frustration. "I'm bad at this."

Tiana giggled. "I know."

Silence.

NiGHTS softly hovered forward. He'd stood apart until now, letting the two of them have their moment. After all, it was a very hard emotional thing to let go of someone you had shared a soul with. It had been hard enough for him with Will and Helen, and they hadn't come anywhere near the epitome that Reala and Tiana had just experienced. But he wanted a chance to say good-bye too.

"NiGHTS!" Tiana noticed in a flash. She'd been so wrapped up in the thought of Reala disappearing that she'd completely forgotten about him. "Ohmygosh! You're going to disappear too!!!"

NiGHTS moved forward to catch her in a hug. "But it's okay," he told her. "I can come visit you in Nightopia whenever you want!"

Tiana pulled away, a bit misty-eyed again. "Nightopia? I'm allowed to go there now?"

NiGHTS smiled, cheerily. "Yup! Now that you've got all of your ideya, you'll be able to create your own Nightopia worlds! And since you're no longer an Explorer, there won't be any restrictions on your dreaming! You just have to be careful your ideya don't get stolen by Nightmaren now."

Tiana's eyes widened.

"No!" NiGHTS immediately added, sensing the thoughts creeping into her mind. "And don't even think about letting the Nightmaren steal them on purpose just so you can come and Dualize with me now! You'd need to have only your Courage Ideya anyway. And besides…"

NiGHTS glanced over to the shining Ideya of Hope, still hovering in the suspensed blackness of the Void a few feet behind them. Tiana's eyes followed. "You wouldn't want to waste everything you and Ree worked so hard for, would you?"

Tiana smiled back at him a little, forlornly. "No."

NiGHTS moved back again. Tiana would still be able to see him, in her dreams. But Reala…

"It's just not fair," she sighed, her body feeling weak and limp from its emotional outpouring. "You can still see me. You'll still be able to see _me_. Why can't I ever see you again?"

"You need to move on," Reala calmly explained. "I've given you the tools you need to live life in this world, and now you need to go live it, without having me hovering around you all the time and being a nuisance."

"But…" The tears were poking at the edges of her eyes again, even when she'd thought she had no more of them. "But I'd feel better if you could at least…come visit me once in a while…"

Reala hovered up closer, the soft blue light of his melded crystal reflecting and blending in with Tiana's blue dress. He hesitantly lifted one arm…and at last, cupped his fingers around one long bang of her hair, gently pushing it back and lifting her head.

She looked up, for what she was sure was the very last time, into his soft white pearl-colored face, his long curling red sensors, with their faintly visible darker stripes…and into the beautiful, deep, aqua-blue swirls of his eyes.

"I will."

He moved away, solemn and final, completely silent. "Take the ideya."

She had to. She had to, eventually. She couldn't keep putting it off forever. She had to accept.

At last, Tiana reached back...and cupped the warm, glowing Ideya of Hope into her hands…holding it just in front of her chest. She could feel the tug, the attraction, the magnestism of it longing to join the other ideya inside her heart. She wanted it. She wanted it within her. She wanted to keep it there forever. All of her ideya. The thoughts, the energies, the pieces of her soul that she had grown together with Reala…

A few tears trailed down the sides of her cheeks again as she held the ideya out in front of her with both hands, bending her arms in…bringing it closer. She looked up.

The two Guardians hung in the air before her, just over the glowing edges of the ideya, in the blackness. NiGHTS held onto Reala's arm, right beside him, focused on her with wide eyes. Reala rested one arm across his stomach, reaching for one of his hands. It might have been a trick of the light, but it almost looked like a tear was glistening at the edge of his own right eye.

And then he smiled. That same soft, beaming, true smile that he had shown her after she had completed the final reality. Proud and loving.

And she captured it forever.

She closed her eyes…and brought her arms in to her chest, feeling the warm light of the ideya passing through her skin and deep into her heart. It settled and blossomed, spreading through her, a beam of warmth and firm security.

Her tears dried. Her body gradually grew stronger and no longer vulnerable. It was okay, it seemed to tell her, and she absolutely believed it. It's okay. She would be okay.

Her time with Reala was over. But it had been one of the most difficult, amazing, and memorable times of her life. And there were more. She had so much more to look forward to. New people, new places. The world had been opened up to her now, with all of its possibilities…and she didn't need to be afraid any longer. This time was now behind her…

No, this time was _inside _of her. All of her memories were inside of her. And suddenly, she knew what he meant.

She _didn't _miss Reala. Because a piece of him was inside of her now. His soul had also gone into the creation of her ideya, of course. She hadn't realized it before. He was right there. He wasn't gone at all. And that piece of knowledge, of togetherness, of faith, of hope…spread to every corner of her spirit.

She smiled. Her cheeks had completely dried now. And she opened her eyes.

She was alone in the infinite blackness of the Void…just herself again. A small human being hanging suspended without any strings. Only pitch darkness spread before her, out into the expanse of the universe. But a soft glow came from where her hands were still clutched to her chest.

Her light brown eyes flickered in the light, smiling in the comforting glow that washed over her face. It was over. It was time to return. To face the wondrous world that had been around her all along. With intelligence, courage, purity, wisdom, and hope in her heart. Safe forever.

(-)

Two Months Later

"Tiana! …Tia-na!!"

Tiana popped out of her fantastical train of throught to see the wide-eyed face of a familiar girl with short red hair and light blue eyes.

"You were spacing out again."

"Oh, sorry."

"I was asking you if we should move the octopus invasion to after the elves make their migration or if we should keep them there and make them live through it."

"Um…I think the elves would kill all the octopi if they came in contact with them."

"Well, yeah, that's a good point."

"We can have the octopi invade another part of the Greenflow Forest while the elves are migrating."

"Yeah, and then the stump-imps would be like 'you have to save us!' but the elves would just refuse and leave them to the octopi."

The redhead laughed. "Yeah! That's it! I'll write it in."

Tiana smiled as she watched the girl writing some notes down on a piece of paper. A few birds twittered back and forth in the trees above them. She shifted her legs in the soft, squishy green grass. It was summer, after all. At last. And next year was looking brighter than ever.

The girl in the grass next to her was named Liz—short red hair framing her face, and bright, eager blue eyes. Her new best friend, whom she'd just met a month and a half ago. Liz loved games and fantasy almost as much as Tiana did, though she was also a fan of sci-fi television shows. They'd spent countless hours discussing things together, playing games together, and sometimes just walking around together, to enjoy the sights.

Later this summer, Liz's family was even planning on taking Tiana and her mother along on a trip to California. They'd always wanted to go to California, but it was always too far away, and they'd never had the money for plane tickets or for a hotel. Liz and her more affluent family were pitching in so they could come along. In fact, the trip was going to get started in just two weeks and both girls were full of excitement.

Right now, they were sitting under the shade of a tree in the park near Tiana's house, working on something special. They were writing a script for a story together, which they planned on collaborating to turn into a film or a game together.

Of course, it would only be a fun diversion—it wouldn't be getting produced. They were still only teenagers—though Tiana would be turning seventeen in September. But she had a wonderful feeling of excitement and purpose within her. That this was worth something. That this would actually lead somewhere. That this life and this world were worth it. She hoped to meet plenty of new people on the way and build something that she could be proud to call her own.

Liz's hair bobbed a little as she sat up, and her face beamed with satisfaction. "I should go get the camera," she offered. "We need to take some shots between the trees here for the forest before we leave."

"Yeah," Tiana agreed, gathering up the papers that had been spread out between them. "You left it out by your dad's car, right?"

"Yeah, you can just stay here while I run back and get it."

The two of them got back to their feet, and Liz stretched out her legs, preparing for the task. "Don't you make any changes behind my back while I'm gone!"

Tiana laughed. "Nah, don't worry. I really like what we've got so far."

"Alright, I'll be right back!" Liz turned and began to jog back down the length of the park towards where the car was parked.

Tiana watched her for a moment, her figure growing steadily smaller and smaller. She sighed a little and packed the pile of paper into the messenger bag leaning against the base of the nearby statue. A bronze war monument statue of a solider saluting the sun, tall and stiff. The very same that she now distinctly remembered smacking into on her first flight.

She smiled up at it, hiding a chuckle. She remembered Reala's face peering down at her, one eye scrunched down in disapproval and annoyance. She remembered his desperate scream as he yanked her away from the tree they had been inches away from crashing into. She saw his form, silent and calm…it must have only been a few feet from where she stood right now…extending his long-nailed hands, softly fitting them around the air, and plucking out a beautiful, gentle, emotional melody on the invisible strings of his lyre, his head tucked down, feeling it. That smile…that wonderful, joyous smile…

Tiana lowered her head and let a few small tears slide down her cheek. _Well…okay…I do miss him a little sometimes…_

_Whack! _

"Ah!"

Something bounced off Tiana's head, heavy and purposeful. She whirled around. None of the other park-goers were anywhere near her. She looked up. She had walked far enough away from the tree now to be out of its range. There was nothing above that could have dropped on her.

Her eyes widened, a reservoir of tears building underneath them. Her mouth opened in complete awe and wonderment. Another couple of tears involuntarily spilled over.

"R-Reala…?"

_Smack!!!_

"Ow!" Something smacked her just above the forehead again, even harder this time.

She couldn't help it—she started laughing. Her hands went out for protection, as if to hold him off. "Okay, okay, okay! Jeez! I get the picture! Look, here." Tiana wiped her eyes on the back of her arm, very deliberately. "There you go. You just want people to think I'm insane again, don't you?"

She heard his low, taunting voice in her head. _Yes_.

"Well, it's too late—you already drove me completely psychedelic-warp-hole loopy. Thanks a lot, Mr. Frilly Collar!"

Tiana smiled. There was a warm, bubbling feeling inside her chest, rimmed with a twinge of sorrow.

He was right beside her right now. And in her mind, she imagined that he was laughing. The sound of that strange, light, fluttering laugh echoed through her memory. At last, she'd done it. She had always just wanted to make him laugh. He was laughing for her now.

Tiana beamed. _He came to visit, just like he said he would. _

"Tianaaaaaaaa!!" She looked up again to see Liz running towards her, waving the camera in one hand. "Tiana!" she called. "Come on! Let's go over there where the trees are!"

"I'm coming!" Tiana called back. She grabbed her messenger bag, quickly slung it over her shoulder, and began to run to her side.

But just for a moment, she turned back, to see the statue, and the dappled sunlight glowing through the leaves of the trees above, illuminating the area in a bright, hopeful light.

He had left now. Flown off somewhere else in the city. But the soft, mystical chords of a lyre tune reverberated in her mind in his wake.

Tiana turned back to Liz, and gave her her most contented, exuberant smile. "Yeah," she finally agreed, with all of her now-complete heart. "Let's go."

(-)

And miles from the park, high above those bright treeptops, high above the tower of East Bridgeside High School, above the tallest three-story apartment, over Gullport Harbor, above the tallest corporate skyscraper in the entire city…a familiar thin, red-and-white figure perched on the very pinnacle of the clock tower on one foot, hands running over the invisible strings of his lyre, against the blazing sphere of the afternoon sun.

Several round, shiny white Awakers congregated in the area around him, bobbing and swaying happily to the sounds. This time, it would be here to stay.

He softly opened his eyes and tucked the lyre under one arm, bending up to full height. The wind at this altitude blew his thick red sensors back as he gazed down on the world below. The blue crystal in the middle of his chest glowed with life, spirit, and affection.

Slowly, purposefully, he lifted his loose white-sleeved arm and placed his hand at his forehead, shading his soft blue eyes as he stared off into the distance. Out into the expanse of the stretching horizon…across the world…across the realm that he loved and protected, and would always love and protect.

At last, his eyes caught something far below. His arm fell back at his side, preparing for takeoff. And he smiled.

"It's not the end," Reala said…to himself…to the cherished realm, and the life that he would never have known, if not for one special girl.

"It's not the end… It's the beginning."

FIN


	12. The Bonus!

I usually do this every time I complete a story, and I don't think it should be against the rules, because although it is sort of a "deleted scenes" type thing, it does contain actual sections of prose that I wrote out myself. Read or don't read--this is just the bonus material!

Chapter 0: The Bonus!

Stats

Time to Complete: a year and two months (which wouldn't have been so long, if I weren't so lazy)

Number of Pages: 258 (second-longest)

Number of Reviews: 79 and counting (and that's a lot for a NiGHTS fic)

Number of Computers Crashed: 1

Number of Pieces of Fanart: 9 and counting. (Definitely a record, making this my most illustrated story ever!)

(-)

Changed/Deleted Ideas

Tiana's first prototype was a girl named "Stella" who was a bit of a delinquent, with more of a punk-like attitude. I changed this very early on because I thought it was way too cliche, plus I just didn't want to work with a character like that.

My first ever sketches of NiGHTS and Reala were actually weird maren-esque human creatures.

One original idea was to have Reala's stripes turn yellow as he progressed, instead of dark red, but then I realized how weird he looked with yellow stripes.

Before I thought up the story of Robert, the markings on Reala's eyes were just markings put there by Wizeman after he was captured, as a symbol of his inability to cry. Thus, they would disappear after he cried for the first time in Illuzius's cage--his own tears were the only things capable of washing them away.

In my original idea, when Reala re-melded with his soul, his skin was supposed to turn a peach flesh-color like NiGHTS's. This idea lasted a long time into the story, which I why I often have references in the beginning chapters about him looking at the color of his skin and thinking it looks strange. In fact, I even made a sketch of Reala's re-melded form (which is still there on my DeviantArt account), including the peach skin. However, as I approached that part of the story, though it's kind of extreme, I thought it was almost racist. Why would he have to change his skin color to the "norm" to be considered "good"? Thus, I changed his skin to a shade of "milky white", which would still be different, but appearing healthy and no longer ghastly

It seems a bit unbelievable, but a lot of the later parts of the story, particularly chapters 9-11, were not even conceived of until after I finished writing chapter 4. Towards the end of chapter 4, I wrote in a scene from Reala's point of view, in which he is musing over the ideas of the Void Master, what a "First-Level Voidable" might be, and particularly, his last Explorer before Tiana. When I wrote that it was "somehow even less accessible" to him, I realized that something must have happened to that last Explorer. Something terrible must have happened to him during the final reality, which triggered everything in the first place. And thus Robert was "born".

Robert's name did indeed come from Roger, of the NiGHTS Archie comics. After learning how Roger "Dualized" with Reala in the comics, I felt like I should do something with him, in relation to the whole "Explorer" framework, but I couldn't find any way of fitting him in without the plot going bonkers. So I just used his name instead. And Robert is also a blond.

My original planning of "realities" was going to include a desert reality, but that morphed and changed due to the fact that I couldn't decide whether to pair it with "growth" or "courage". There was a bit of a tug-of-war between the desert and the South Pole for Courage.

In the end, I had planned on including Will and Helen, who re-join with NiGHTS and then join efforts with Tiana and Reala in the final battle against Illuzius. However, I realized later that I really had no reason for throwing them in, other than to have them meet Tiana and clash with her and to be afraid and mistrustful of Reala. I had NiGHTS mention them briefly when he first came into the story, but after that, I decided to get rid of them altogether, especially after I had fully formed my "Voidable NiGHTS" idea.

At the very end, after Tiana and Reala defeat Illuzius, Illuzius was supposed to lash out with a tentacle as a final attempt and manage to rip off NiGHTS's Soul Crystal. Reala and Tiana tear apart when Reala feels his brother's distress and automatically goes diving after him. Tiana is a bit shocked, but finds out that she can still float there in the Void by herself. Reala first catches NiGHTS's Soul Crystal, and finally catches his brother just in time, attaching the crystal to his chest again. NiGHTS is all happy and grateful to him. This part was in the story almost until the very end--I even wrote it into my plot-organization checklist. However, as I was writing and approaching that part, I really couldn't find a way of fitting it in. I'd already done the "Voidable NiGHTS" scene, and I just felt that there wasn't a need for it. There were enough "Reala is stronger than NiGHTS now!" examples. The result is that the NiGHTS-Reala relationship has less closure in the end than the Tiana-Reala relationship, but it allows for a greater focus on what is most important. The "100 percent Dualization" idea also came in very late--not until after I'd written chapter 10.

(-)

Other Random Useless Trivia

**Why NiGHTS hugs Owl**- Towards the end of Chapter 9, NiGHTS hugs Owl very close after being thrown out of the Forbidden Nightopia (which is the Nightopia created by Reala's unconscious). Of course, he just really needed to hug someone right then, but the reason in my mind, though I never tried to explain it, was because Owl himself is a piece of that Nightopia. I have Reala mention something about "every extraneous creature" after that, which is a nudge towards this uncompleted idea. The idea is that since Reala is not a Visitor, the things inside his Nightopia are more "real", more permanent. They can move out of the Forbidden Nightopia and among other Nightopias with ease. They are essentially a part of the dream world itself. Here is where Owl, Octopaw, and the Goodle-birds come from (the birds themselves are not Nightmaren--only the creatures riding them are.) It's a really whacked-out theory, which is why I decided not to include it explicitly. Plus, it suggests that Reala created Owl, Octopaw, and the birds, which feels like I'm giving him too much power and importance (though he doesn't really know that he created them--it was his subconscious).

The filename for this story on my computer is "Experiment", meaning "I'm just going to try this out for now and I may not go with it." Obviously, I named it when I first started working on it, but I just never felt like changing it.

While NiGHTS uses one hand when he Dualizes with a Visitor, Reala always uses both hands. This is because Reala, unlike NiGHTS, is unable to Dualize with two people at the same time (also since it's incredibly rare for him to have two Explorers at the same time).

Just like Nightopians and Nightmaren, Awakers and Voidables are made up of similar energies, and so, they also can merge. However, since they are both more gaseous creatures, they don't bump into each other, but "fuse" into each other to become a new creature. The resulting creature is called a "Voiker" or "Voik". It is the general size and shape of an Awaker, only now black and gaseous as a Voidable. The Awaker's arms, tail, and head fin also take on characteristics of the specific Voidable, such as a "Leaf Voiker", which has leaf shapes for its arms and head fin.

Tiana obtains the Ideya of Growth after completing the Twin Seeds reality. In the original NiGHTS game, there is a subheading under all the levels, such as "Soft Museum: The Confusion" Twin Seeds' subheading is "The Growth". What a convenient coincidence!

(-)

Deleted/Changed Scenes

1.) The First Encounter

This was probably the first scrap of writing I did for this story at all. And it's actually the longest. A lot of things stayed the same, but a lot also changed. I was spelling Tiana's name with two N's, for one. And she was also going to have a sort of punk-ish, tough-girl personality. She doesn't seem as afraid of Reala in this version than in the actual story. I changed that because it just seemed too cliche and I didn't want her to be too unrelatable in that way. Her nickname was going to be "T", but that sounded too much like "Ree". Reala actually threatens to kill her a few times, though he's only leading her on. And Stella and Lily didn't really have personalities at all.

Reala also stutters when wondering what he's supposed to call Tianna, because I hadn't yet decided on the name "Explorer" for the "Waking analogue to a Dreamer". One of the other names was "Materialist", but I decided that sounded too negative. And I don't remember what the "D" name was at all.

(-)

"This is utterly impossible," the voice said. "There's supposed to be a billion of them, and I can only sense about three million. Dangit. How in the name of Wizeman am I supposed to make them all?"

Tianna froze, turning towards Lily. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Someone was talking...about a billion of something."

Stella sighed. "Tianna...if you're trying to trick us into believing you hear ghosts again, it's not working."

Tianna's heart even sped up a little. Oh come on--she did _not _believe in ghosts! "I...I seriously hear something. Maybe there's a guy down that alley. We should go and check it out."

"B-But what if it's a street thug or some psycho?" Lily worriedly said, pulling back on her sleeve. "I...I don't want to..."

Tianna shrugged. "_I'm _not scared." Though really, in her heart, she was...just a little.

"Of course then I've got to pack off the complete sets...what a waste of resources...and I don't even think there _are_ any complete sets here...at least I haven't sensed any. We're doomed. Yup. But of course, that was only because of...aaaarrr, why does my head hurt so much?!"

No, it wasn't a thug--that voice was too...polished. It could be a drug dealer, by the way he talked about "complete sets" and "sending them off"...and he could very likely be a psycho--but at least not a dangerous one.

Tianna ground her teeth. That's it. She was going in. Her cowardly friends trembled a little, but still stayed behind her. And then...she rounded the corner.

Her eyes nearly dropped out of her head right then. Immediately, it stuck out like a sore thumb, and she couldn't take her eyes away from it. What...what _was _it?!

It sat on top of a trash can with legs crossed, muttering to itself in that same sharp, deep voice. It looked like a person...but whatever it was, it definitely wasn't human. Its feet were huge and completely covered, its arms and legs were long and unnaturally wiry. It didn't appear to have a nose, and its skin was an alien color of pale blue. But most disturbing of all...two long, curling, striped horns extended out of its head where its hair should have been.

Her friends immediately noticed her stricken expression--but nothing else. Apparently, they couldn't see it. "What's wrong, T? There's nothing there," Stella said.

"N-N-No," she struggled to reply, keeping her voice extra soft, so as not to disturb it. "It's...it's some kind of alien. Over there on the trash can..."

It didn't work. The alien/ghost thing turned its head towards them. For one nerve-wracking moment, a pair of long, blue, scarred eyes looked straight into her own. Then, mercifully, it turned its horned head back around a moment later.

"Sweet mother of darkness, it's a onesie... Well, at least those other little brats have got three..."

Tianna slowly began to calm down. _It doesn't know that I can see it..._ Could it even hear them? Suddenly, she didn't feel so afraid of it anymore. After all, she knew something it didn't now. She had one up on it.

"Yeah," she said, raising her voice in challenge. "Right there. On the trash can. There's an alien."

Lily rolled her eyes. "You're outta your mind, T."

The alien's head snapped around again...but this time, it remained fixed.

Tianna's heart froze. It had heard her. It knew. She was sure of it.

Its bright, bright blue eyes narrowed, standing out in sharp contrast against its red-and-black horns. It lifted itself off the trash can and hovered--hovered!--in the air, moving a bit closer to her. Tianna tried to keep a straight face, but she could feel the dread creeping back into her heart. What was this weird, freaky, horned alien going to do to her?

It was at least five feet over her now, nearly touching the top of its head to the bottom of the nearest balcony. From this angle, she could see more of it--not that she wanted to. It was wearing red and black boots to match its horns, white tights, a belt, some sort of black shirt with a ruffled collar and a blue diamond on the front, with long white sleeves, ending in red and black checkers. The face was what scared her the most--it looked like some sort of demon.

"So you can see me, can you?" it snarled down at her. "Great. Just great."

"C'mon, let's get outta here," Stella insisted, pulling on her collar. "I don't wanna just stand around, staring at the wall all day."

Tianna gulped. "G-Guys, I'm serious. It's floating. It's mad at me..."

The creature crossed its arms and sighed. "It's probably because you're a Onesie. What was it that you're called? Ex...D-D...No, Mat...arrgh, forget it!"

"Wh-What's a 'onesie'?" Tianna finally grew bold enough to ask.

Stella and Lily looked at her like she was the alien. The real alien shook his head in distraction. (From its deep voice, she thought it was a he). "You've only got one of them, while your friends have three."

"Three of what?"

"What are you talking about?" Stella asked her.

"You're going insane!" Lily conceded. "If this is some kind of joke, it's not funny!"

The creature sighed heavily again. "If you want to know, you're going to have to do something about those annoying friends of yours."

Tianna clenched a fist. "But...but how do I know you're not going to hurt me once they're gone?"

"Fine. You can keep them around the corner, but somewhere where they won't hear your insensible blabbing. I will not have my presence revealed through you--and especially to those bubble-headed idiots. The whole city would know about me by sundown."

So he really _was_ an alien?

Tianna took a deep breath. "Hey, guys? He needs to speak with me alone, so..."

Stella rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I'm ready to get out of here anyway. I'm not hangin' around with you if you're gonna pull that stupid ghost stunt on us again."

"Yeah," Lily agreed. "I'm going home. See you some other time, T."

Tianna was speechless. "B-But...but what if it...?!"

"Bye-bye!" Stella and Lily called in unison. Then, they disappeared around the corner.

A sense of terrible dread clawed its way into her heart then, though she would never admit it. And it grew even worse when she turned around to see the creature half-smirking, cruelly.

"Aww," it hissed, dripping with sarcasm. "They've all abandoned you, haven't they? Well, good for them."

Tianna felt a terrible rage burn up in place of her fear. "What are you going to do to me?" she snapped. "Are you going to kill me?"

The creature crossed its legs in midair, sitting back on the air. "Well...that's a possibility. It _would _make one less set I'd have to complete..."

"Well, at least tell me what I want to know first!" Tianna insisted. "You said you'd tell me if I got rid of my friends..."

"You're awfully gullible, aren't you?" The ugly smirk crept back onto its bluish face. "I'm quite infamous as a liar and a dirty cheat, you know."

Tianna gritted her teeth and didn't let her fear show on her face.

"So where was I? Oh, yes, you're a onesie. Meaning, of course, that you've only got one ideya in your heart."

So he _was_ going to explain after all? Geez, then why'd he do that? Tianna decided not to waste a moment's opportunity. "So what's an ideya?"

"A form of powerful magic which comes from human beings. And this place, of course. _My _realm. Everyone is supposed to grow five of them."

"So why do I only have one?"

The creature shrugged, completely unconcerned. "Only you know that. But you've got "intelligence", though I have to doubt that with the way I could trick you so easily..."

"So why am I able to see you? And what the heck are you anyway?" Tianna wasn't exactly happy with the being tricked comment. She _was_ intelligent, dang it!

The creature crossed its arms and glared darkly down at her. "You're getting awfully bold and snappy. I should probably kill you now..."

"I'll give you my ideya then!" Tianna cried out. "If that's what you want! Just tell me!"

The creature straightened itself out again and gently lowered itself to the ground. "Really, it doesn't matter--I could always take your ideya after you're dead!"

Tianna squeezed her eyes closed. Great. That was it. She was going to die now. ...Oh well, she'd always hated this planet anyway.

"...It means you need my help."

Tianna's eyes opened again. The demon-alien was now standing only a few yards away from her, though it was still at least a foot and a half taller than her. It crossed its arms again. "Not that I feel any inclination to help you."

Tianna slowly blinked in confusion. She wasn't going to die again? Would he make up his mind already?! "Good, because I certainly don't need any help from you!"

"Of course you do, otherwise you wouldn't be able to see me. As for my identity, don't you think it's a little rude to ask me when you haven't even introduced yourself?"

"I'm Tianna," Tianna snapped back in frustration. "And at least you seem to know what a human is."

The creature nodded. "I _do _know what a human is, Tianna. I am not entirely certain of what I am anymore, but..." It placed its hands on its hips, intimidatingly. "My name is Reala, and I am the guardian of this realm."

"This realm?" Tianna asked. She was wrinkling her nose. The guardian of this realm? He sounded like some sort of superhero--a defender of the planet. _He _was the guardian of the world?! No wonder she hated it so much.

"Yes. I am in charge of the Waking World--the physical world, while my brother is in charge of the Dreaming World, or spiritual world."

The expression on her face must have betrayed her disbelief.

He gritted his pointed teeth. "You don't believe me, do you? Okay. _Now_ I'm going to kill you."

Tianna grinned slightly. "You can't kill me if you're the defender of the planet! That would be going against your job, wouldn't it?"

"My only requirement is to help bring about the creation of enough ideya in order to counteract the Voidables who are attempting to take over my realm."

(-)

2.) Outside Sources

NiGHTS makes mentions of "abstaining from the outside sources" a few times, and actually, I can't even remember what that meant. Perhaps at this point in my idea, NiGHTS and Reala actually _were_ Nightmaren who just took on this "Guardian" status, or that Wizeman had actually captured _both_ of them, and NiGHTS figured out that he wasn't really a Nightmaren, leading to his "rebellion". I know NiGHTS is referring to eating Nightopians here, but that seems to suggest that at one point, he _did_ have to eat Nightopians.

(-)

"So...why is he so skinny?" Tianna asked. "He told me he didn't need to eat anything. Was he just lying to me?"

NiGHTS shook his horned head. "No, it's true, we don't need to eat, but _he_ does. He needs energy--he's running very low and he's still drawing it from outside sources instead of producing it inside him, like I do. That's probably why he's sleeping so much."

Tianna frowned, remembering how many times in the past Reala had complained about being tired. This was serious. If he couldn't get enough energy, then... "Is there anything I can do to help?" Tianna asked, desperately. "I don't want him to..."

"There's really nothing you _can _do," NiGHTS told her. "He's got to start making the energy himself, or he'll be like this forever, and he's got to figure it out for himself."

"What will it take for him to start making it himself?"

NiGHTS shrugged. "I just abstained from the outside forces for long enough, and it did it automatically--but the same doesn't seem to be working for him."

Tianna couldn't help but feel just a little twinge of sympathy. She wished she could talk to him about it without getting her face bitten off. She hoped that Reala was at least _trying_ to make his own energy...

(-)

3.) Blackmail Opportunity

Just a cute moment between NiGHTS and Reala that I had planned in the beginning. Tiana also mentions that NiGHTS and Reala don't show up on camera. I was going to have a point in which Tiana tries to prove NiGHTS's and Reala's existence to her friends by taking pictures of them, only to find out that they don't show up in the pictures once she gets them developed. Because only she can see them, the camera's lens definitely can't. I just forgot it/there wasn't space for it.

(-)

When she entered back into the room, Tianna was surprised to find NiGHTS sleeping in the same bed with Reala. Actually, it looked like they had just passed out and fallen asleep after another round of dancing...or pillow-fighting. Now they were all tuckered out... Awwwwww...

Tianna felt a little warmth in the center of her chest as she gazed at them. It was so...unusually peaceful. Reala was spread out over the bed, as if he had simply plopped himself there...and his hand rested limply over a familiar purple shoulder. NiGHTS was curled up sideways underneath it, tucking his head against Reala's upper arm, one hand placed lightly on his chest. And they were both snoring, softly.

Tianna grinned widely. Oh, if only she could take a picture of them right now... For the first time, she thought it extremely unfair that their forms wouldn't show up on film. Think of all the ways she could use it for blackmail...

(-)

4.) The Love Speech, Version 1

Much of it's the same, except for the ending, in which NiGHTS mentions Reala being at a "full power level". In the end, I was thinking of him gaining his muscley-ness back as an indication that he's got his power back, but then I decided to do the opposite, because I personally don't like the look of his muscles, and because I wanted to do another "you don't have to be physically strong to be powerful" thing.

(-)

"Um...are you...in love?"

His face contorted, confusedly. "In _love_? With _who_?!"

Tiana grimly nodded towards the doorway to her bedroom behind her.

NiGHTS burst into giggles. "With _Ree_? Kyahahahaha! Eheeheeheeheeheeheehee!"

Tiana scowled. "Gee, sorry for asking. I know he said you're brothers, but..."

NiGHTS took a deep breath and suffocated his laughter. "No, no!" he managed to cry out with the remainder of his breath. "It's a really good question. I know you might be a little confused..."

Tiana took a seat on the plum-colored hassock, preparing herself for the explanation. NiGHTS frowned a little bit in consideration. "I don't know if I'll even be able to explain it to you. I would imagine it would be a little difficult for a human to understand... But I'll try then..."

Tiana shifted a little, anxiously. She didn't really want to find out if they really were in an incestuous relationship...

NiGHTS took another deep breath to begin. "Well, Ree and I aren't _actually_ brothers, in your human sense, since we weren't 'born', though we did come into existence together at the same time." NiGHTS shook himself, moving just a little bit closer to her and smiling. "And, you see, there's a big difference between loving somebody and being 'in love' with them. If you had asked me 'do you love him', then yes, I do love him. I love him dearly. But no, I am not in love with him."

"Yeah," Tiana replied. "I understand that--it's like if I said I love my mother. But...but you and Reala...you sleep next to each other and take baths together and hug and kiss...well he's never kissed you, but... Those are things that people with that kind of love don't normally do."

NiGHTS sighed. "...Yeah. That's where it gets complicated for you..."

Tiana sat up straight and listened attentively.

"Ree and I are...gosh, I don't know how to put it...soulmates? No, that has romantic connotations. We're...two halves? We're connected? Ah, forget it. We have a very special relationship. Both of us have no gender, you know that. Well, we love each other with our souls and not our bodies. When Reala lost his soul he also lost his love for me, and so I've been trying to get it to come back to him. We need each other. It's part of the Balance. But we don't have to be physically close. We're like brothers or best friends...but a little more than that. But it's not romantic. There's no "passion". I know you've seen me kiss him, but it's always like, on the head. I'd never want to kiss him on the lips. Eeuck. That would be, like, kissing your pet hamster. Or a clone of yourself. For that matter, I don't even think Ree is attractive. He's much too pasty. And those marks over his eyes creep me out. And when he's at a normal power level, he's got these bulging arm muscles that are just...eeeyeck..."

(-)

5.) More Sad Stuff

What the title says.

(-)

It had gotten even more prevalent now that he was sick. He just...didn't have the energy for it anymore. And this was even worse than anything before.

Tiana found herself actually missing the constant racket and pandemonium created by Reala and NiGHTS's never-ending antics. The apartment had been alive with a sudden little spark of excitement. Tiana would never know what to expect--often things which angered her, such as NiGHTS dancing around in her ball dress, or Reala going through her personal notebooks. Still, no matter how angry she got at them or how angry they got at each other, they always seemed to make up...or to simply forget the anger. She missed Reala's shouting and cursing, NiGHTS's crazy giggling. The loud thumping of two bodies against the floor, usually accompanied by the crash of something else breaking.

It was sweet, the way NiGHTS had always tried to cuddle up to Reala--during the night, during a bath, or just anytime there was a pause in the action. And he did it being fully aware that he was only going to get hit or shoved off in return. In fact, he found that it was the shoving off that he sought. He wanted to provoke Reala into retaliating somehow...but to get no response at all...

NiGHTS knew that Reala's ill health was only because of his lack of energy--he couldn't catch that. So, one night, he snuggled up next to him again...smiling...waiting for the smack across the head. Only it didn't come. He couldn't get up enough energy to do it.

"NiGHTS..." his voice softly, firmly came out. "Don't...do that. Please..."

NiGHTS was frozen, completely stunned for a moment. What? Had he really just said...?

"Please..." Reala repeated in a tired voice, and NiGHTS willingly removed his arms. He felt awful--worse than if Reala had scratched him.

However, the one thing neither of them minded was a sensor-rub. NiGHTS actually did it pretty often, hoping it would help Reala feel better--and Reala always let him, because it did. NiGHTS would lift his head to rest it in his lap and softly, tenderly run his hands over his long, red, striped sensors. His stripes had gotten even lighter lately. Only one shade lighter and they'd blend in like his own. These sensor rubs were the only things that could really make Reala feel better, and it almost broke NiGHTS's heart sometimes, the way he turned his head, snuggling against his hands, asking for more. It was all that he could do for him.

(-)

6.) Soulless-ness

A few excepts of me figuring out some scenes for the Soul Crystals idea. Though it appears that Wizeman doesn't really know about the Soul Crystals, because I hadn't developed the background story of the "Time Before" yet.

(-)

When he pressed his finger to it, he felt a dull, soft throbbing...warm and alive. "That's your soul," he informed him. "Don't ever let anyone take it from you."

The gentle warmth of his life gradually began to throb deeper. It was such a wonderful feeling. "I won't," he assured him. "And you don't either, okay?"

NiGHTS nodded. "I'll never let anyone take it, no matter what. Being without a soul...is worse than being dead!"

And Reala agreed. Having this gentle, warm life ripped away from him...would be a horrendous thing.

(-)

And in the struggle, it came loose, clattering down the stairs and out of sight.

"No!" NiGHTS yelled, kicking hard against the strong metallic fingers that bound him. "No, the...the...!!!"

Reala didn't say anything. He couldn't say anything. He lied against the nondescript stone, cold, limp, and empty. His aqua eyes became flat and blank.

A few tears slipped down off NiGHTS's round cheeks. "Ree..."

For a moment, Wizeman was silent. He didn't need NiGHTS to finish that sentence--he knew what was going on. And from the little quiver that went through his tiny body, he knew he was right. Why not try out a little experiment?

Another of Wizeman's hands reached down...and placed a long, thin, feathered mask over his eyes.

NiGHTS's poor heart pounded against his chest...as Reala slowly began to move again...

(-)

7.) Weigh-In

There wasn't any space for this in the whole "Reala's deterioration" process, and that chapter is long enough as it is. But anyway, Reala is beginning to run out of energy for walking, especially long distances, and so he tells Tiana to carry him. Tiana freaks out and protests that he'd be way too heavy for her to carry. And so...

(-)

"There's no way," Tiana asserted. "Watch." And then, she reached down onto the couch, fitting her arms around Reala's body...and hoisted him into the air, with a bit too much force.

Tiana was so startled that she nearly dropped him. Her mouth fell open in complete shock and confusion. Her arms folded under Reala's knees and around his back, holding him bridal-style. His steely blue eyes stared back at her from her left shoulder, completely calm. And then, she freaked out.

"_What the_...?!"

Reala scowled. "Could you keep it down? I'm right here, you know."

"B-But...how? Why?" Tiana lifted his body a little higher, testing it out. He was so light! Well, he was still fairly heavy--but no heavier than a toddler. "Jeez!" she cried. "I knew you were scrawny, but..."

"That's it--let me down!" Reala clambered back out of her arms at the sound of the dreaded "s" word and turned his back on her, huffily.

NiGHTS smiled, amused. "Well, I suppose you already know..." he began to explain. "We have no bones, no blood, no internal organs, like you humans..."

"Oh, yeah." Tiana remembered Reala saying something like this before.

"...So we weigh a lot less!"

"Oh..." No bones or organs...and their heads hovered, so they didn't count. Plus, they were impossibly thin (from a human perspective), and their bodies were entirely composed of this soft, stretchy, yet strong material...which was very light. No wonder they could fly around so easily.

"See? Look at this!" NiGHTS flew into the bathroom, Tiana following close behind. He alighted gently on top of the bathroom scale, with a gentle tap. The scale beeped for a moment, then solidified on a number...36. 36 pounds.

"My _gosh_." Tiana commented. "That _is_ light."

"Hey, Ree, you should weigh yourself too! Just so Tiana knows the amount she'd have to carry!" NiGHTS turned to call into the next room.

Reala grumbled and complained for a while, but finally stepped into the bathroom with them. "Fine, whatever. It's not like I care what I weigh..."

He carefully took a step up onto the scale (which was quite awkward when you aren't used to climbing stairs.) He closed his eyes in annoyance. The scale beeped and gave out a solid reading. NiGHTS and Tiana bent down to see it. NiGHTS's face paled. He shouldn't have looked.

"Thirty-two?" Tiana asked. "Isn't that even less than you?"

Reala's eyes popped open. He sent a challenging glare down at the scale's readout--to be met with the shocking, solid facts. The two little red numbers flickered tauntingly at him.

"You...you have lost weight." NiGHTS's worried voice spoke up. "You were always a few pounds heavier than me--38 or 39. It's completely natural, considering that your sensors are larger. But...now you're four pounds _lighter_...that's just not right."

(-)

8.) "Down, Down."

I wrote this as a prototype for the scene in which Reala pushes NiGHTS down next to him because he misses how he used to sleep next to him...and I guess I forgot about it when it came time to actually write this scene, because I actually like this version better! The best for last:

(-)

And as NiGHTS sat there in silence, just peacefully observing...just being there in silent comfort...he began to feel the light pressure of Reala's thin hand reaching out and pushing against his side.

He lifted his arm in awe, and bewilderment, and Reala pushed against him, tugging on his jacket's hem. Down...down... He pushed him a little down, and NiGHTS obligingly went the rest of the way, folding his body down against the mattress. Reala's hand patted, limply over his back again. "Down, down. Stay down." And it was easy to read his body language.

Reala curled his arm back beneath the blanket, satisfied.

NiGHTS smiled a little--gently, forlornly...and held up a finger. "Just this once."

Reala frowned. Then he softly folded his head in, closer.

NiGHTS slipped his body in, right next to his, and wrapped his loving, warm arms around him. Just like always. Reala closed his eyes. And together, this time, at last...they fell into a peaceful slumber.

(-)

Bonus

This is more of a random personal diary entry I wrote, but it was when I was first forming this story, and I just read it for the first time again and found it rather amusing. It's a mental argument between me and Reala:

(-)

For a while, I've had a certain new character gnawing on my brain and yelling, "Write my story, dammit!" between mouthfuls. To which I try to respond, "No! You're a scary freak, and I know next to nothing about you. And Vaati is 100x cuter than you, so there!"

Then he yells, "But my story needs to be told because no one else on the earth has EVER thought of it and you're the only one who can tell it. So do it now, you pathetic little human!"

"But your 'story' is just a stupid little thing which completely defies canon, and that I made up based solely on your name! Your fangirls are going to maul me for making you OOC, especially since the only fic I could find with you being OOC was about you falling in love with a mary-sue author-insert girl."

"Well if you're a good writer like you say you are, you can make it so the OOC parts don't seem so OOC! Jeez!"

"But I'm calling you something that the canon obviously says that you aren't!"

"People have been speculating about me for years! Why not?! You could make up lots of crazy theories about me, and they could all feel legitimate! SO WHY NOT?!"

"But I...I don't feel like taking that kind of risk..."

(-)

Unused Quotes

Sometimes specific lines just pop into my head, so I write them down, even if I don't end up using them--like all of these.

"Well, that's, like, uber, crazy hard, so I'm really happy!" --NiGHTS (referring to Reala "holding off so long" and not having to use the "outside sources".)

"WAAAAAUGH! STOPPIT STOPPIT STOPPIT!" --NiGHTS (making fun of Reala's freaking out at almost smashing into the tree)

"Yep! I was absolutely positive that I was gonna die too! Heehee!" --NiGHTS (again referring to the "abstaining from outide sources")

"Well, I have a lot more to sense, you idiot." --Reala (responding to NiGHTS asking why his sensors are bigger than his)

"Where did you think they _came _from?" --Reala (referring to ideya)

"Maybe this is what we were meant to do." --NiGHTS or Reala (I don't know which, but it refers to their jobs as guardians. Perhaps this was also part of the "they were Nightmaren first" thing)

"Make a pact with him and it's a pact for life. ...Unless he forgets it, of course." --NiGHTS (to Tiana, about Reala)

"Gee...I'd hate to be your friend." --Tiana (to Will and Helen, after learning about how they thought about abandoning NiGHTS after they found out he was a Nightmaren)

"Sometimes I create stuff and sometimes I destroy stuff--that's just the way it goes." --Reala (I'm not sure when this was supposed to occur, but it makes perfect sense)

"Yeah, he's cold and he's frustrating and he's not very nice...and he has no manners...but he's still my brother, and I love him!" --NiGHTS (about Reala, of course)

"You...you two..." --? (This is confusing the heck out of me. I have no idea what it's supposed to be refferring to now. You two what? NiGHTS and Reala? Helen and Will? Tiana and Reala?)

"You! Get out of my realm!" --Reala (to NiGHTS, fed up with him coming to bother him all the time)

"The point being--you can't just keep hiding here forever." --Reala? (I'm not exactly sure who this is. It could very well be Reala talking to Tiana after their final reality encounter, but I'm not entirely sure)

"Aqua...the same color as the tropical sea..." --Tiana (about Reala's eyes. This is more of a thought than an out-loud quote. She looked into his eyes and was reminded of their experience at the first reality)

"It's so quiet..." --Reala (after he wakes up for the first time and notices that NiGHTS is gone)

(-)

Other Story Ideas

Sequel: "Requiem for Fading Memories"

Sequel to Quest of Memories. Two years after the end of QoM, Reala finds a new Explorer-- an African-American teenage girl named Krystal, going through problems with a romantic relationship and her overprotective parents. However, during an accidental encounter on a dark street after running away, an eight-year-old boy named Morris also ends up Dualizing with Reala. Morris is an orphan who has always lived in a medical clinic, having been diagnosed with a terminal illness. But a child Explorer is impossible...right? And can Reala handle juggling the quests of two separate Explorers at once for what could well be the very first time?

Meanwhile, NiGHTS returns to the Waking World after an encounter with a strange creature, bearing a mysterious scepter which eventually allows Wizeman's spirit to enter the Waking World. NiGHTS wants to use the scepter to find Illuzius's spirit and reunite the two dark brothers, but Reala has other plans to reverse the polarity of his "compatible" attraction to Wizeman and make Wizeman _his_ servant. Reala eventually must use the scepter to enter the "transit dimension" for the first time...where he may encounter a few very familiar faces...

Into Nightmares

Prequel to Quest of Memories. This tells the story of the "time before". How Reala and Robert first met, and what they were like together. And also about NiGHTS's two Dreamers before Claris and Elliot--Hannie and Reese. And how Hannie and NiGHTS told Robert about the Dreaming World...and he decided to go there, permanently. And how Reala then broke his connection...and discovered Nightmare.

(-)

Yes, unfortunately, I will not be extending on the above sequel idea, as I have never managed to finish a sequel, and as it is now, it does not have a compelling enough storyline and trajectory to sustain itself. I may dump a few tidbits elsewhere on the internet, but sadly, there will be no actual sequel.

But I have really enjoyed my time writing this story, which I consider to be one of my best thus far, despite a few things I know I would have to re-work if it was an actual book capable of being published. Thanks to this story, I will now be walking around in Ohio at ColossalCon dressed as Journey of Dreams Reala and probably scared out of my mind. It makes me very grateful to have followed through with this idea and seen it out to the end.

Special Thanks: (in order by number of reviews, and then alphabetical)

Shadow of Phantasia, shokogoddess11, LilStarcon, Lacewing, sandy-the-echidna (these folks are in a league by themselves, for the awesome fanart they've done!)

The Magic Pickle Fairy, pride1289, Link Fangirl01, Lady Alamantia, Red ParaTroopa, Gatita101, Speedy the E-Furior, Jazzy Kat, Oooooooreo, sifra, Skylark Malone, Yamia Ishtar, Epic Failure, Erika, michelle molloy, Nikalian88, OvErLoRd Darkspine, Senteth, untitled, The Venerable Mainframe

and everyone who reads this story to the very end, no matter when or whether you review or not.

and of course to Mr. Naka and Mr. Iizuka, and everyone from SonicTeam for the beautiful games that will always be in our hearts.

--EternalFluffy


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